Patent ID: 6681035
Filing Date: 2004-01-20
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
An improved method of cell nucleus segmentation from an image containing a cell nucleus including the steps of:(i) constructing a search space in the image; (ii) searching the search space with a Viterbi algorithm using a first predetermined value of &lgr; to find a boundary of the nucleus; (iii) determining a centroid within the boundary; (iv) constructing an updated search space in the image centred on the centroid; (v) searching the updated search space with the Viterbi algorithm using the first predetermined value of &lgr; to find an updated boundary of the nucleus; (vi) comparing the update boundary with the boundary; (vii) repeating steps (iii) to (vi) until the boundary and the update boundary are substantially the same; (viii) storing an image of the cell nucleus and the found boundary when the update boundary is the same as the boundary; (ix) searching the search space with a Viterbi algorithm using a second predetermined value of &lgr; to find an update boundary of the nucleus; and (x) rejecting the nucleus if the update boundary differs from the boundary by greater than a predetermined amount.