System and method for monitoring bacterial growth of bacterial colonies and predicting colony biomass

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions that upon execution cause a processor of a digital imaging apparatus to:

• obtain a first digital image of an inoculated culture media at a first time (to), the first digital image having a plurality of pixels;
• determine coordinates of the pixels in the first digital image relative to a substantially optically transparent container carrying the inoculated culture media;
• provide instructions to remove the substantially optically transparent container carrying the inoculated culture media from a digital imaging apparatus and place the inoculated culture media in an incubator for further incubation;
• obtain a second digital image of the inoculated culture media at a second time (tx), the second digital image having a plurality of pixels;
• align the first digital image with the second digital image, such that coordinates of the plurality of pixels in the second digital image correspond to the determined coordinates of each corresponding pixel in the plurality of pixels in the first digital image;
• compare the pixels of the second digital image with corresponding pixels of the first digital image;
• identify pixels that changed between the first digital image and the second digital image, wherein the pixels that have not changed between the first digital image and the second digital image are designated background;
• determine which of the identified pixels in the second digital image have a predetermined level of threshold contrast with pixels designated background;
• identify one or more objects in the second digital image, each object comprising pixels that possess the predetermined level of threshold contrast with the pixels indicative of background and that are not separated from each other by background pixels;
• correlate the identified objects with a biomass;
• determine that the biomass is from a pure biological sample or not from a pure biological sample;
• in response to determining that the biological sample is identified as a pure sample, further determine whether the biomass is above a first threshold, the first threshold being a predetermined area of the culture media covered by the identified object, and, in response to determining that an area of the identified object is above the first threshold, cause at least a portion of the biomass to be picked for further analysis;
• and
• in response to determining that the biological sample is not a pure sample, cause the inoculated culture media to be incubated in the substantially optically transparent container.