Method and apparatus for recognizing smears

A method for recognizing a smear comprising the steps of;

• (a) positioning a slide held on a movable stage of a microscope to a predetermined position such that the test smear on said slide is positioned within a view field of said microscope;
• (b) moving said stage in a predetermined direction in response to an instruction from a control unit such that different areas of said test smear along the length of said smear are sequentially positioned within the view field of said microscope;
• (c) sequentially detecting by a detector object to be counted in test samples at respective measuring points appearing in the view field of said microscope as said stage is moved to determine distribution densities of the objects to be counted at the respective measuring points;
• (d) comparing the distribution densities at the respective measuring points with a preset distribution density to determine an optimum test area on the test smear;
• (e) moving said stage in response to an instruction from said control unit such that said optimum test area is positioned within the view field of said microscope;
• (f) moving said stage such that the view field of said microscope scans transversely to the length of said smear in said optimum test area on said test smear;
• and
• (g) detecting said objects as the viewfield of said microscope scans and classifying the detected objects.

An apparatus for recognizing a smear comprising;

• an optical microscope having a movable stage for holding a slide on which a test sample to be recognized is smeared in a predetermined direction;
• means for moving said stage;
• means for detecting object to be counted in measuring areas positioned within a view field of said microscope and counting said objects in the respective measuring areas;
• means for storing the counts for the respective measuring areas in accordance with the moving direction of said slide;
• and
• control means for instructing said moving means to move said stage such that said slide is moved along the length of said test smear and selecting a desired one of said counts stored in said storing means to control the movement of said stage such that a start position for the recognition determined by said selected count is positioned within the view field of said microscope.

An apparatus for recognizing a smear comprising;

• an optical microscope having a movable stage for holding a slide on which a test sample to be recognized is smeared in a predetermined direction;
• means for moving said stage;
• means operable in a pre-scan mode for detecting objects to be counted in measuring areas positioned within a view field of said microscope and operable in a recognition mode for detecting objects to be recognized;
• means for counting the objects in the respective measuring areas;
• means for storing the counts for the respective measuring areas in accordance with the moving direction of said slide;
• control means for instructing said moving means to move said stage such that said slide is moved along the length of said test smear and selecting a desired one of said counts stored in said storing means to control the movement of said stage such that a start position for the recognition determined by said selected count is positioned within the view field of said microscope, said control means further operable in the recognition mode to stop the movement of said stage in response to a detection signal for the object to be recognized;
• means for recognizing a pattern of said object to be recognized while said stage is stopped in the recognition mode;
• and
• means for classifying the recognized objects.