Method and apparatus for judging agglutination pattern

A method of judging an agglutination pattern comprising the steps of:

• setting a reference value, and
• judging the testing agglutination pattern,
• said reference value setting step including the steps of:
• (a) storing video images of a plurality of agglutination images,
• (b) differentiating the video images to produce differential images;
• (c) producing an area of the profile of the differential images;
• (d) producing a variation coefficient of each picture element of a differential image having a luminance level not zero from a standard deviation of the picture elements,
• (e) plotting the relationship between the variation coefficients and the area of the profile,
• (f) inputting a visual judgement of a plurality of agglutination images to plot the images on a plot of said relationship,
• (g) determining a linear line on the relationship plot so that an overlapping portion of positive and negative agglutination regions of the plot of the visual judgement on the plot of said relationship is obtained, and
• (h) storing the result obtained from step (g) of determining the linear line, and
• said agglutination judging step including the steps of:
• (i) executing the above steps (a) to (e) for independently prepared agglutination images, and
• (j) comparing the result obtained in step (i) with the linear line stored in step (h).