Patent ID: 7522762

Claim:
A method for determining the presence or amount of a plurality of analytes in one or more samples using a test surface carrier comprising a plurality of discrete arrayed optical thin film test surfaces, each arrayed optical thin film test surface comprising a plurality of discrete test locations comprising a capture reagent to immobilize for detection of one of said analytes, said method comprising: contacting each of said discrete arrayed optical thin film test surfaces with a sample to be tested for said plurality of analytes, whereby said analytes, if present, are immobilized at a corresponding test location; removing unbound sample components from each of said discrete arrayed optical thin film test surfaces; and determining a signal from each of said plurality of discrete test locations on each of said discrete arrayed optical thin film test surfaces, wherein each of said signals is related to a change in mass or optical thickness of the corresponding optical thin film, each of said signals comprising light reflected from the surface that has undergone a change in the polarization state, phase or interference color, and relating each of the signals to the presence or amount of one of said plurality of analyte; wherein said signal is determined simultaneously from each of said plurality of discrete test locations on one of said discrete arrayed optical thin film test surfaces by capturing an image of a discrete arrayed optical thin film test surface, and performing image analysis on said image to obtain a signal from each of said plurality of discrete test locations; and wherein said image analysis comprises: identifying an initial array location in the image of the arrayed optical thin film test surface, identifying whether skew or flatness is present and correcting for skew and flatness if present; thresholding the image; identifying individual test locations in the thresholded image and refining the array location by comparing an offset of the location of each test location to a predicted test location obtained from the initial array location; and obtaining a signal from each test location in the refined array.