A method and apparatus for automated cell analysis of biological specimens automatically
scans at a low magnification to acquire images which are analyzed to determine
candidate cell objects of interest. The low magnification images are converted
from a first color space to a second color space. The color space converted image
is then low pass filtered and compared to a threshold to remove artifacts and background
objects from the candidate object of interest pixels of the color converted image.
The candidate object of interest pixels are morphologically processed to group
candidate object of interest pixels together into groups which are compared to
blob parameters to identify candidate objects of interest which correspond to cells
or other structures relevant to medical diagnosis of the biological specimen. The
location coordinates of the objects of interest are stored and additional images
of the candidate cell objects are acquired at high magnification. The high magnification
images are analyzed in the same manner as the low magnification images to confirm
the candidate objects of interest which are objects of interest. A high magnification
image of each confirmed object of interest is stored for later review and evaluation
by a pathologist.
