Bubble segmentation based on Shape From Shading for in-situ microscopy

This paper describes a new bubble segmentation algorithm based on shape from shading for in-situ microscopy. An in-situ microscope is an instrument to capture and analyze intensity images of cells inside of a bioreactor with minimal operator intervention and without the risk of culture contamination. For bubble segmentation, the closed bubble boundaries are first extracted by thresholding a depth map. The depth map is estimated by applying the Bichsel and Pentland´s Shape From Shading algorithm. Then, each extracted closed bubble boundary is filled in to obtained the bubble regions. The experimental results revealed an average processing time of 2.68 seconds and very promising bubble segmentation results.