Method and apparatus for imaging of cells for the quantitative phase imaging of cells

Abstract

A method and apparatus for quantitative phase imaging a cell culture in a cell culture vessel has an imager for providing a plurality of z-stack brightfield images of at least a portion of the cell culture in the cell culture vessel, each image corresponding to a different focal distance relative to the cell culture and each image comprising an array of pixels and at least one processor configured to receive the plurality of z-stack brightfield images. The at least one processor processes the plurality of images to determine a plane of z which represents a central focal plane for the set of images, wherein the central focal plane has a z value, determines a polynomial function that estimates the intensities at each pixel location in each of the plurality of images as a function of z, creates an intensity image using polynomials from the polynomial function to create an image comprising an estimate of the physical intensity at each pixel of the image at the z value of the central focal plane, creates a first derivative image using polynomials from the polynomial function comprising an estimate of a first derivative of the physical intensity at each pixel of the image at the z value of the central focal plane, uses the intensity image and the first derivative image to define a three-dimensional voxel formed at each corresponding pixel in the intensity image and the first derivative image, each voxel having a base surface and a top surface and uses a transport of intensity equation to determine a phase distribution of each voxel and its surrounding voxels based on the estimates of the intensity and the first derivative to obtain a quantitative phase image of the cell culture.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.