JPH07122902B2 - Cell position detector - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a cell position detecting device, and more particularly to a cell position detecting device suitable for detecting the position of a cell at high speed from a cell image.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, there has been a demand for a technique for transferring a gene of a heterologous cell into a cell. This gene transfer technique requires skill and a great deal of labor because it transfers a gene of a heterologous cell to a minute cell. In order to improve this, for example, JP-A-60-
As described in JP 83583, when laser light is projected onto cells, the surface condition of the projected cells is improved, and the laser light is projected onto the cells, focusing on the fact that the substance can be taken in. There is disclosed a device for perforating cells.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the above-mentioned conventional example, the distribution state of cells to be projected with laser light is selected by moving the stage equipped with the cell sample holder while observing the cell image displayed on the television monitor. That is, the selection of the cell position on which the laser light is projected is performed by human visual inspection. For this reason,
The operator requires a great deal of labor, and the operator's efficiency of monitoring work is limited, and the workability is not good.

The present invention has been made based on the above-mentioned matters, and an object of the present invention is to provide a cell position detecting device that can automate a cell monitoring operation and improve its workability.

[Means for solving problems]

The above-mentioned object of the present invention is to extract a contour feature of a cell from a captured image of a cell, and to extract an image including the most cell contours from the contour feature image of the cell from the feature extractor. This is achieved by including means and determination means for determining the cell position based on the cut-out image from the image cut-out means.

[Action]

The cell image is extracted by the feature extractor as a contour image of the cell. This cell contour feature image is cut out by the image cutting means into an image containing the most cell contours. Then, based on this cut-out image, the determination means counts the feature points of the cell contour and determines the cell position where this count value is the maximum.

〔Example〕

 Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention, in which 1 is a culture container having a culture solution W and cells S, 2 is a television camera for photographing the cells S in the culture container 1, 3 Is an image processing device that processes a captured image from the television camera 2, 4 is a control device for the television camera 2, and 5 is a cell S
A laser for projecting laser light onto the laser beam, and an irradiation control device 6 for the laser 5.

The television camera 2 described above scans the inside of the culture container 1 in response to an address signal from the control device 4, and photographs the cells S in the liquid. This photographed image is taken into the image processing device 3, and the position of the cell S in the culture solution W is calculated. The irradiation control device 6 controls the laser 5 based on the position information of the cell S from the image processing device 3 and projects the laser light from the laser 5 onto the cell S.

The configuration of one embodiment of the image processing apparatus 3 described above will be described with reference to FIG. The image of the cell taken by the television camera 2 is transferred to the feature extractor 30 which is composed of, for example, a differentiating circuit. The feature extractor 30 extracts the contour line of the cell from the captured image. The output from the feature extractor 30 is transferred to the cutout circuits 31A to 31D composed of shifters and registers, and four kinds of cutout images are extracted, for example, as shown in FIGS. That is, the cutout circuit 31A outputs a cutout image of 4 pixels shown in FIG. 3 and the cutout circuit 31B 16 shown in FIG.
The cutout image of pixels, the cutout circuit 31C, the cutout image of 36 pixels shown in FIG. 5, and the cutout circuit 31D shown in FIG.
The pixel cutout image is set to be cut out. The above-described setting of the number of pixels of the cutout image, that is, the number of pixels set in the cutout circuit 31A is smaller than the size of the minimum cell image, and the number of pixels set in the cutout circuit 31D is set larger than the size of the maximum cell image. To be A line WS shown in FIGS. 3 to 6 indicates a contour line of a cell. Returning to FIG. 2, the cutout circuits 31A to 3A
The image data obtained in 1D corresponds to the corresponding counter 32
Transmitted to A to 32D. The counters 32A to 32D count the number N _{1 to} N ₄ of feature points that represent the cell contour in each cutout image. The selector 33 obtains the maximum number of feature points N _{m representing} the cell contour based on the number of feature points N _{1 to} N ₄ from the counters 32A to 32D. The maximum number of feature points N _m is calculated, for example, by the following procedure. That is, (1) Step 1: If N ₂ > N _m , set N _m = N _n and proceed to the next step 2. At this time, if N ₁ = N _2, then N _m = N ₁ , and the process ends.

(2) step 2: if N _3> N _2, proceeds as N _m = N ₃ to the following step 3. At this time, if N ₂ = N _3, then N _m = N ₂ and the process ends.

(3) Step 3: If N ₄ > N _3, then N _m = N ₄ and the process ends. If N ₄ = N _3, then N _m = N ₃ and the process ends.

The line memory 34 stores the output (the number of characteristic points) of the selector 33 in the scanning order. The determiner 35 calculates the address A indicating the position of the cell S based on the data of the number of characteristic points from the line memory 34. That is, the determiner 35 determines the output (feature number) of the selector 33 as shown in FIG.
Based on the address signal from, the scanning order is examined, and the address A at which the selector output (the number of characteristic points) maximizes is output to the irradiation control device.

Next, the operation of the above-described embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention will be described.

The television camera 2 scans the inside of the culture container 1 based on the address signal from the control device 4, and photographs the cells S in the liquid as a set of a plurality of pixels. The image of the cell taken by the television camera 2 is transferred to the image processing device 3. The cell image transferred to the image processing device 3 is the second image.
Image data of the contour line of the cell is processed by the feature extractor 30 shown in the figure. This image data is transferred to the cutout circuits 31A to 31D, and as shown in FIGS.
Cut out multiple cutout images based on the pixels set to ~ 31D. Then, the number of feature points of the cell contour in each cut-out image is counted by each of the counters 32A to 32D, and the maximum number of feature points N _m is obtained. These feature points are stored in the line memory 34 in the scanning order and transferred to the determiner 35. The number of feature points corresponding to the plurality of cut-out images transferred to the determiner 35 is examined in the determiner 35 in the scanning order based on the address signal from the television control device 4, and the address A, that is, the cell having the maximum number of feature points is obtained. The address A indicating the position of S is determined. This address A is applied to the irradiation control device 6, and the laser light from the laser 5 is projected onto the cell S located at this address A. As a result, it is possible to provide the cell S with perforations and to take in the substance into the perforations.

FIG. 8 shows another embodiment of the image processing apparatus constituting the apparatus of the present invention. In this figure, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 2 indicate the same or corresponding parts. In this embodiment, the output (the number of characteristic points) from the selector 3 is stored in the buffer memory 36.
The determination unit 35 determines the center position of the cell based on the data in the buffer memory 36, and controls the irradiation control device 6 and the television control device 4 based on the position data. Also in this example,
Cells can be perforated in the same manner as in the above-mentioned examples.

Although the contour line of the cell is obtained in the above-described embodiment, the feature extractor may be configured as a binarization circuit to obtain the inner point of the cell from the image.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to accurately obtain cell position information based on an image taken by a television camera,
Since the laser is controlled based on this position information, it is possible to perform the perforation work on the cell accurately and improve the workability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the device of the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an image processing apparatus constituting the present invention, FIGS. 3 to 6 are diagrams showing examples of cut-out images used in the present invention, and FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the present invention. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the operation of the decision unit for making a decision, and FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the construction of another embodiment of the image processing apparatus constituting the present invention. 1 ... Culture container, 2 ... TV camera, 3 ... Image processing device, 4 ... TV camera control device, 5 ... Laser, 6
...... Irradiation control device.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Nobuo Kimura Inventor Nobuo Kimura 502 Jinritsucho, Tsuchiura-shi, Ibaraki Machinery Research Institute, Hiritsu Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor, Mikiro Tsukoshi, 2-1, Hirosawa, Hiromitsu, Wako-shi, Saitama, RIKEN (56) Reference JP-A-59-218576 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A cell position detecting device for detecting the position of a cell in a cell imaged image, a feature extractor for extracting a contour line of a cell from the cell imaged image, and a cell axis contour line from the feature extractor. A plurality of clipping circuits for extracting a clipped image of a plurality of pixels from the image, a counter for counting the number of feature points representing cell contours in each clipped image in each of the clipping circuits, and a counter from the counter A selector that finds the maximum number of feature points that show the cell contour based on the number of feature points, and an address that indicates the position of the cell based on the maximum number of feature points that shows the cell contour from this selector, and this address value is the laser control signal. A cell position detecting device, comprising: