Patent ID: 7490009

Claim:
A method of analyzing spectroscopic data, the method comprising collecting spatially resolved measurement spectroscopic data of a sample for a series of measurements spots, assigning the measurement spots into a predefined set of spectral categories, based on characteristics of the spectroscopic data of the respective measurement spots, identifying contiguous groupings of the measurement spots based on their respective spectral categories and their spatial relationships, assigning each contiguous grouping of measurement spots to a unique fundamental sample unit data object, said fundamental sample unit data object containing the spectroscopic data of the measurement spots and spatial data representing said spatial relationships associated with said each grouping, collecting the resulting fundamental sample unit objects together as a measurement population, incorporating the fundamental sample unit objects into a hierarchical structure of inter-related data objects such that each leaf node of the hierarchical structure comprises one of the fundamental sample unit objects, with remaining data objects of the hierarchical structure representing general information independent of the collected spatially resolved measurement spectroscopic data, and generating a report on the sample based on further processing and analysis of said fundamental sample unit data objects in the measurement population.