Particle image analyzing apparatus

• US 20070273878A1
• Filed: 05/15/2007
• Published: 11/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sysmex Corporation
• Original Assignee: Sysmex Corporation
• Inventors: Fujii, Kozo, Yamaguchi, Katsuaki
• Granted Patent: US 7,643,143 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 356/337
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 15/1433 using image recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 15/1459 the analysis being performed on a sample stream
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2015/1497 Particle shape

Abstract

A particle image analyzing apparatus for analyzing an image of an imaged particle, the particle image analyzing apparatus comprising: an illuminating unit for providing dark field illumination the a particle; an imaging unit for acquiring capturing an imaged image by imaging the dark field illuminated particle; and an image processing unit for extracting a particle image from the imaged image captured by the imaging unit, based on a threshold value larger than a luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the particle image, and analyzing the extracted particle image to obtain morphological feature information indicating the morphological feature of the particle; wherein the image processing unit extracts the particle image from the imaged image based on a threshold value larger than a luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the particle image.

Claims

1. A particle image analyzing apparatus for analyzing an image of a particle, the particle image analyzing apparatus comprising:

an illuminating unit for providing dark field illumination a particle;

an imaging unit for capturing an image by imaging the illuminated particle; and

an image processing unit for extracting a particle image from the image captured by the imaging unit based on a threshold value larger than a luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the particle image, and analyzing the extracted particle image to obtain morphological feature information indicating the morphological feature of the particle

2. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing unit includes calculating means for calculating a luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the image captured by the imaging unit, and threshold value setting means for setting a threshold value larger than the luminance value calculated by the calculating means,

wherein the image processing unit extracts the particle image from the image captured by the imaging unit based on the threshold value set by the threshold value setting means.

3. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a flow cell through which a plurality of particles flow;

wherein

the imaging unit is configured to image the plurality of particles flowing through the flow cell over a plurality of times; and

the threshold value setting means sets the threshold values and the image processing unit extracts a plurality of particle images from each of the captured image based on the threshold value.

4. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a flow cell through which a plurality of particles flow;

wherein

the imaging unit is configured to image the plurality of particles flowing through the flow cell over a plurality of times; and

the threshold value setting means sets a threshold value by using the captured image in a predetermined number of times and the image processing unit extracts the plurality of particle images from each captured image based on the set threshold value.

5. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing unit extracts the particle image by comparing a luminance value of each pixel of the captured image and the threshold value.

6. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a most frequent luminance value of the captured image is used as the luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the captured image.

7. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the morphological feature information of the particle includes at least one of size or shape of the particle.

8. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the particle is transparent particle.

9. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an adjustment section for adjusting the light emitting intensity of the illuminating unit;

the image processing unit extracts the particle image from the captured image and obtains the luminance value related to the extracted particle image; and

the adjustment section adjusts the light emitting intensity based on the luminance value of the particle image.

10. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the luminance value related to the particle image is an average luminance value of each pixel.

11. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the adjustment section adjusts the light emitting intensity based on the difference between a target luminance value of the particle image and the average luminance value thereof.

12. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the size and shape of the particles are substantially uniform.

13. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a flow cell through which a plurality of particles flow, and a movement mechanism for horizontally moving the flow cell at a predetermined interval between the illuminating unit and the imaging unit;

wherein

the imaging unit is configured to capture the image of particles flowing through the flow cell over a plurality of times at each position of the flow cell moved by the movement mechanism;

the image processing unit extracts a plurality of particle images from a plurality of captured images, and obtains the luminance values of the plurality of the extracted particle images; and

the particle image analyzing apparatus is configured to determine the position of the flow cell focused by the imaging unit based on the position of the flow cell and the luminance values of the plurality of the particle images.

14. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 13, the particle image analyzing apparatus is configured to determine the position of the flow cell focused by the imaging unit based on the position of the flow cell and an average luminance value of the plurality of particle images.

15. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 14, the particle image analyzing apparatus is configured to determine the position of the flow cell at where the average luminance value is the highest as a position focused by the imaging unit in a relation between the position of the flow cell and the average luminance value.

16. A particle image analyzing apparatus for analyzing an image of a particle;

the particle image analyzing apparatus comprising;

an illuminating unit capable of illuminating the particle by bright field illumination and by dark field illumination;

switching means for switching the illuminating unit to either the bright field illumination or the dark field illumination;

an imaging unit for capturing an image by imaging the particle illuminated by either the bright field illumination or the dark field illumination switched by the switching means; and

an image processing unit for extracting a particle image from the imaged image acquired by the imaging unit and analyzing the extracted particle image to obtain morphological feature information indicating the morphological feature of the particle;

wherein

when the imaging unit images the particle illuminated by bright field illumination, the particle image is extracted from the imaged image by the bright field illumination based on a threshold value smaller than a luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the captured image; and

when the imaging unit images the particle illuminated by dark field illumination, the particle image is extracted from the captured image by the dark field illumination based on a threshold value greater than the luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the captured image.

17. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the imaging unit includes calculating means for calculating the luminance value substantially corresponding to the background of the captured image, a first threshold value setting means for setting a threshold value greater than the luminance value calculated by the calculating means, and a second threshold value setting means for setting a threshold value smaller than the luminance value calculated by the calculating means;

when the imaging unit images the particle illuminated by dark field illumination, the particle image is extracted from the captured image by the dark field illumination based on the threshold value set by the first threshold value setting means; and

when the imaging unit images the particle illuminated by bright field illumination, the particle image is extracted from the captured image by the bright field illumination based on the threshold value set by the second threshold value setting means.

18. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 17, further comprising a flow cell through which a plurality of particles flow;

wherein

the imaging unit is configured to image the plurality of particles flowing through the flow cell over a plurality of times; and

the image processing unit executes setting of the threshold value by the first threshold value setting means or the second threshold value setting means, and extraction of a plurality of particle images from each of captured image based on the threshold value.

19. The particle image analyzing apparatus according to claim 17, further comprising a flow cell through which a plurality of particles flow;

wherein

the imaging unit is configured to image the plurality of particles flowing through the flow cell over a plurality of times; and

the image processing unit performs setting of the threshold value by the first threshold value setting means or the second threshold value setting means using the captured image in a predetermined number of times, and executes extraction of a plurality of particle images from each of captured image based on the set threshold value.

20. A particle image analyzing apparatus for analyzing an image of a particle, the particle image analyzing apparatus comprising:

an image acquiring unit for acquiring a particle image containing a plurality of pixels, the plurality of pixels including particle pixels indicating the particle and background pixels indicating the background; and

an image processing unit for categorizing pixels having a greater luminance than a predetermined threshold value as particle pixels and categorizing pixels having a smaller luminance than the predetermined threshold value as the background pixels.