Smartphone-based apparatus and method
First Claim
1. A method performed by an imaging system for obtaining a point-of-collection, selected qualitative and/or quantitative indicia of an analyte on a test platform, comprising:
- providing a modular assay test platform (e.g., test strip) having at least one test region and a control region;
providing an analyte to be tested on the at least one test region;
providing an imaging system to implement the steps of;
obtaining an image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region;
selecting an array of pixels in the image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region;
determining a Red-Green-Blue-Alpha color value for each of the arrays of pixels;
extracting a test image region for analysis;
converting the Red-Green-Blue-Alpha array to an alternate color space as determined by the specific test including at least one of Hue-Saturation-Luminosity, Hue-Saturation-Value, and greyscale;
determining one of a median, mean, maximum, minimum, or other statistical measure of the color or intensity value for various regions of the test platform containing test and control areas and creating a one dimensional array containing these values;
determining a low-frequency variation in color or intensity value over the array and,performing illumination correction and background subtraction;
detecting a peak or valley in the adjusted array corresponding to the test and control regions to be measured;
determining a depth, width, height (for example, based on intensity or color maxima/minima), and/or area (for example, based on integrated color or intensity) of these peaks or valleys which correspond to detection or control regions of the test platform; and
determining a qualitative presence of the selected indicia of the analyte by the number of peaks or valleys present, and/or a quantitative value of the selected indicia of the analyte by quantitative comparison of two or more peaks or valleys.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method for obtaining a point-of-collection, selected quantitative indicia of an analyte on a test strip using a smartphone involves imaging a test strip on which a colorimetric reaction of a target sample has occurred due to test strip illumination by the smartphone. The smartphone includes a smartphone app and a smartphone accessory that provides an external environment-independent/internal light-free, imaging environment independent of the smartphone platform being used. The result can then be presented quantitatively or turned into a more consumer-friendly measurement (positive, negative, above average, etc.), displayed to the user, stored for later use, and communicated to a location where practitioners can provide additional review. Additionally, social media integration can allow for device results to be broadcast to specific audiences, to compare healthy living with others, to compete in health based games, create mappings, and other applications.
25 Citations
26 Claims
-
1. A method performed by an imaging system for obtaining a point-of-collection, selected qualitative and/or quantitative indicia of an analyte on a test platform, comprising:
-
providing a modular assay test platform (e.g., test strip) having at least one test region and a control region; providing an analyte to be tested on the at least one test region; providing an imaging system to implement the steps of; obtaining an image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region; selecting an array of pixels in the image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region; determining a Red-Green-Blue-Alpha color value for each of the arrays of pixels; extracting a test image region for analysis; converting the Red-Green-Blue-Alpha array to an alternate color space as determined by the specific test including at least one of Hue-Saturation-Luminosity, Hue-Saturation-Value, and greyscale; determining one of a median, mean, maximum, minimum, or other statistical measure of the color or intensity value for various regions of the test platform containing test and control areas and creating a one dimensional array containing these values; determining a low-frequency variation in color or intensity value over the array and, performing illumination correction and background subtraction; detecting a peak or valley in the adjusted array corresponding to the test and control regions to be measured; determining a depth, width, height (for example, based on intensity or color maxima/minima), and/or area (for example, based on integrated color or intensity) of these peaks or valleys which correspond to detection or control regions of the test platform; and determining a qualitative presence of the selected indicia of the analyte by the number of peaks or valleys present, and/or a quantitative value of the selected indicia of the analyte by quantitative comparison of two or more peaks or valleys. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. A portable, modular, point-of-collection, colorimetric-based diagnostic system, comprising:
-
a smartphone including an image detector; a smartphone accessory comprising; a housing that can be removeably attached to the smartphone in a manner that at least optically couples the smartphone accessory to a resident smartphone camera; a lens that allows for adjustment of the focal length of the smartphone camera to enable imaging of the test strip in a compact device, wherein the housing is opaque such that the smartphone accessory is substantially externally light-tight when a test strip is disposed therein, further wherein the housing includes at least one of a designed-in optical pathway and a light diffuser in the housing for providing diffuse illumination of a surface of the test strip disposed therein from an internal light source resident in the housing or an external light source resident in the smartphone to which the smartphone accessory can be attached; and an executable application resident in the smartphone that, in operation, performs the following steps; obtaining an image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region; selecting an array of pixels in the image of the at least one test region containing the analyte and the control region; determining a Red-Green-Blue-Alpha color value for each of the arrays of pixels; extracting a test image region for analysis; converting the Red-Green-Blue-Alpha array to an alternate color space as determined by the specific test including but not limited to Hue-Saturation-Luminosity, Hue-Saturation-Value, or greyscale; determining a median color or intensity value for the pixels in each row, and creating at least a one dimensional array containing these values; determining a low-frequency variation in color value over the array and performing illumination correction and background subtraction; detecting a peaks or valley in the adjusted array corresponding to the test and control lines to be measured; determining a depth or height (intensity maxima/minima) and/or area (integrated intensity) of these peaks which correspond to detection lines of the test strip; and determining a qualitative presence of the selected indicia of the analyte by the number of peaks present, and/or a quantitative value of the selected indicia of the analyte by quantitative comparison of two or more peaks. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
-
Specification