Hello BigMike,
The HCC project scientists do intend to use the current results to improve the algorithm in 2009. I do not have any detailed information about their plans.

Lawrence

The images that crystallographers consider "clear drops" range from near-perfect images, such as the ones Mike is talking about, to more problematic images, such as where the droplet is not completely flattened against the well bottom, leaving a contact point that looks like a droplet within a droplet. Then there are those images where a crystallization, precipitation, or other result is just barely visible.

Unfortunately, for almost every method of analysis, the boundaries are fuzzy between perfectly-empty images, images with subtle-but-unimportant details, and images with subtle-but-important details. Nature puts everything on a continuum. Part of this phase of the HCC project is determining the utility of a large range of image analysis algorithms and their parameters. Those that are distracted by "ghosts" or insignificant details are going to have very bad statistics, and those computations will be culled.

I like Mike's suggestion of interrupting the image analysis process if initial computations can already classify the image with certainty. It is a strategy we are investigating.

Thanks,

Christian A. Cumbaa
Research Associate
Ontario Cancer Institute