Anisotropic Contour Completion for Cell Microinjection Targeting

This paper shows a novel application of the diffusion tensor for anisotropic image processing. The designed system aims at spotting and localizing injection points on a population of adherent cells lying on a Petri´s dish. The overall procedure is described including pre-filtering, ridge enhancement, cell segmentation, shape analysis and injection point detection. The anisotropic contour completion (ACC) employed is equivalent to a dilation with a continuous elliptic structural element that takes into account the local orientation of the contours to be closed, preventing extension towards the normal direction. Experiments carried out on real images from an optical microscope revealed a remarkable reliability with up to 86% of cells in the field of view correctly segmented and targeted for microinjection.