Automated counting of bacterial colonies by image analysis
Shashidara Raju, H G Aparna, Archana Vaikom Krishnan, Dhanesh Naryanan, Vishwajith Gangadhran, Shelma C Paul
Abstract
Colony counting is some of the most basic and frequent operation in colony cultivating trials, and is both basic and important in agriculture, foods, medical analysis. Currently, people adopt national standard detection technique to count colonies. When the sample is huge, the method becomes difcult and time consuming. It is necessary to enhance the traditional counting method with the advancement of computer technology. We therefore implemented a colony counting system with a Biowizard Image Analysis Software to count the bacteria in the agar plates. The automatic colony counting program was user friendly and did not require any specic hardware or extensive training. It only required a digital image of the agar plates with colonies in any image format. The Biowizard Image Analysis Software gave better information about colony parameters, with respect to sensitivity and time required, as compared to manual counting and other commercial softwares.