The present invention relates to a method for the assessment of quantity
and quality parameters of biological particles in a liquid analyte
material. The method comprises applying a volume of a liquid sample to an
exposing domain from which exposing domain electromagnetic signals from
the sample in the domain can pass to the exterior, and exposing, onto an
array of active detection elements such as CCD-elements, a spatial
representation of electromagnetic signals having passed from the domain,
the representation being detectable as an intensity by individual active
detection elements, under conditions permitting processing of the
intensities detected by the array of detection elements during the
exposure in such a manner that representations of electromagnetic signals
from the biological particles are identified as distinct from
representations of electromagnetic signals from background signals. The
size of the volume of the liquid sample is sufficiently large to permit
the assessment of the quantity and quality parameters to fullfil a
predetermined requirement to the statistical quality of the assessment
based on substantially one exposure.
