Quantifying color changes of chemical test pads induced by specific concentrations of biological analytes under different lighting conditions
AssigneeScanadu Incorporated
InventorsBernard Burg, Martin Zizi, Aaron Alexander Rowe, Anthony Smart, Walter De Brouwer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Color quantification of chemical test pads and titration of analytes can be performed under different lighting conditions. In one embodiment, the lighting condition is estimated under which a digital image is captured and utilized to select a set of reference colors from which the quantified color is compared to determine the titration. In another embodiment, a plurality of comparisons are made with different lighting conditions with the result having the highest confidence level being selected to determine the titration.
Claims24
A method for quantifying color change of at least one test medium on a diagnostic instrument, the method comprising:
- with a digital camera, capturing a digital image of at least a portion of the diagnostic instrument that has been exposed to a biological sample, the diagnostic instrument comprising at least one color reference including a plurality of reference samples of different colors and at least one test medium containing a reagent that changes color in response to concentration of a particular analyte in the biological sample;
- identifying at least one reference sample of the plurality of reference samples for the at least one test medium in the diagnostic instrument;
- determining a dominant camera-captured color of the at least one reference sample and a dominant camera-captured color of the at least one test medium;
- estimating lighting conditions under which the digital image is captured;
- correcting the dominant camera-captured color of the at least one test medium, in response to a color correction factor derived at least in part from the dominant camera-captured color of the at least one reference sample, to determine a corrected test medium color;
- and
- determining a test result including an analyte concentration of the biological sample by comparing the corrected test medium color to a set of possible test medium colors corresponding to predetermined analyte concentrations, wherein the set of possible test medium colors is responsive to the estimated lighting conditions under which the digital image is captured.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.