Patent ID: 7590492

Claim:
A processor-controlled system configured for grouping objects of interest (OOIs) located on a microscope slide within fields of interest (FOIs) covering portions of the slide, including for each FOI: sequentially selecting OOIs that have not been assigned to any FOI; assigning an initially selected OOI to the each FOI; determining if each subsequently selected OOI can be collocated with OOIs previously assigned to the each FOI by initially defining a current boundary that includes the initially selected OOI, wherein the boundary is geometrically similar to the each FOI, and for each subsequently selected OOI, expanding the current boundary to include the subsequently selected OOI, and if each dimension of the expanded boundary is the same or smaller than a corresponding dimension of the each FOI, identifying the subsequently selected OOI as a collocatable OOI and setting the expanded boundary as a new current boundary; assigning each collocatable OOI to the each FOI; and outputting the locations of the FOIs to which the collocatable OOIs have been assigned in a user-readable format.