Patent Document ID: 7876948
Application ID: 12460891
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An imaging apparatus, comprising: a motorized stage; a camera focused relative to the motorized stage; and a processor coupled to the camera, wherein the processor contains instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: capture a low resolution image that is incident on the camera, wherein the low resolution image includes a plurality of pixels, the pixels having a characteristic; establish the characteristic for each pixel; determine which of the pixels contain a target image based on the characteristic of the pixels and establish a target area that includes those pixels; transpose the position of the target area into a plurality of stage coordinates; capture a high resolution image that is incident on the camera at each of the stage coordinates, wherein the processor determines which pixels contain the target image based on a relative intensity of the pixels and further: determines a mean intensity of the pixels; compares the intensity of each of the pixels to the mean intensity; divides the pixels into a group of non-target image pixels having high intensities and a group of target image pixels having intensities lower than the high intensities; determines, for the pixels, an intensity standard deviation that provides an amount of variation in pixel intensity; compares the intensity of each pixel to the intensity standard deviation; and divides the pixels into a group of non-target image pixels having low standard deviations and a group of target image border pixels having standard deviations that are greater than any of the low standard deviations.