Fluorescent intensity measuring method and apparatus
AssigneeOlympus Optical Co., Ltd.
InventorsTakami Shibazaki, Kaneyasu Okawa
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Abstract
A fluorescent image is obtained by emitting the light with a wavelength which excites a labelling fluorescent substance, a mask is created by a foreign matter area image extracted from an image of foreign matter adhering to the measurement object obtained by emitting light with a wavelength which does not excite the fluorescent substance, and logical multiplication of the mask and the fluorescent image is executed, thereby obtaining a fluorescent image that a foreign matter area is eliminated from the fluorescent image.
Claims49
A fluorescent intensity measuring method which measures the intensity of minute points which are arranged on a substrate having a substantially flat surface and include a fluorescent substance, comprising:
- a first imaging step of emitting light with a wavelength with which the fluorescent substance can be excited and obtaining an image of each minute point including the fluorescent substance as a first image;
- a second imaging step of obtaining an image of foreign matter adhering on the substrate as a second image by light with a wavelength which does not excite the fluorescent substance;
- an extraction step of obtaining a binarized image by extracting a foreign matter area from the second image;
- and
- a foreign matter elimination step of disabling an image at a part overlapping the foreign matter area in the first image with the binarized image being used as a mask.
A fluorescent intensity measuring apparatus which measures the intensity of a fluorescent image obtained by irradiating minute points which are arranged on a substrate having a substantially flat surface and include a fluorescent substance with an excitation light, comprising:
- a light source;
- first wavelength selecting means for selecting a wavelength of the excitation light;
- image forming means for forming an image of the fluorescent substance;
- second wavelength selecting means for selecting only a wavelength of a generated fluorescence;
- photoelectric converting means for obtaining an image by scanning a fluorescent image;
- storing means for storing the image;
- and
- image processing means for performing:
- processing to emit light with a wavelength which can excite the fluorescent substance in the light from the light source by controlling the first wavelength selecting means, to obtain an image of the minute point including the fluorescent substance as a first image by the photoelectric converting means by controlling the second wavelength selecting means, and to store the first image in the storing means;
- processing to emit light with a wavelength which does not excite the fluorescent substance in the light from the light source by controlling the first wavelength selecting means, to obtain an image of a foreign matter which has adhered to the substrate by the photoelectric converting means by controlling the second wavelength selecting means, and to store the second image in the storing means;
- processing to obtain a binarized image by extracting a foreign matter area from the second image stored in the storing means;
- and
- processing to disable an image at a part overlapping the foreign matter area in the first image stored in the storing means with the binarized image being used as a mask.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.