Patent ID: 7336804

Claim:
A method for monitoring a biological process, said method comprising: receiving image data of an object having one or more features, said image data corresponding to frames comprising a plurality of pixels; dividing each frame into one or more regions based on the one or more features and each region into one or more subregions; filtering pixels in each subregion according to a pixel intensity range to provide a filtered output of pixels; defining for each frame a first area within each subregion, said first area defined by one or more predetermined shape equations according to a shape of a feature to be monitored in the subregion; evaluating for each frame the number of filtered output of pixels in the first area for each subregion to transform the image data to a scalar feature signal for each subregion; and transforming each scalar feature signal to produce a behavior indicating output signal for each subregion, said step of transforming comprising setting a value of the behavior indicating output signal to a value of a scalar feature signal at a first time if a value of a scalar feature signal at the first time is equal to or greater than the value of the behavior indicating output signal at a time preceding the first time and reducing the value of the behavior indicating output signal by a fraction if the value of the scalar feature signal at the first time is less than the value of the behavior indicating output signal at a time preceding the first time.