Department of Bionanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands.
Eur Biophys J. 2013 Aug;42(8):647-54. doi: 10.1007/s00249-013-0912-2. Epub 2013 Jun 1.
The process of detecting and tracking biological features such as bacteria and nuclei is complicated by the fact that they constantly change their shape. Shape changes happen both continuously as the biological features grow and discontinuously as they divide or die. In this paper I present a new method of tracking such features for the case that they can be reasonably approximated by a relatively simple mathematical shape such as a cylinder or an ellipse. Using contour plots with multiple levels to detect the features and their shapes, rather than the commonly used single contour detection technique, this method can efficiently detect multiple features even if they have large differences in brightness, as well as reliably track divisions when both brightness and size drop dramatically.
检测和跟踪生物特征（如细菌和细胞核）的过程很复杂，因为它们的形状不断变化。形状变化既可以是生物特征生长过程中的连续变化，也可以是它们分裂或死亡时的不连续变化。在本文中，我提出了一种新的方法来跟踪这些特征，前提是它们可以被一个相对简单的数学形状（如圆柱体或椭圆形）合理地近似。该方法使用具有多个级别的轮廓图来检测特征及其形状，而不是常用的单个轮廓检测技术，即使特征的亮度差异较大，它也可以高效地检测多个特征，并且在亮度和大小都显著下降时，也可以可靠地跟踪分裂。
