title: Creating a virtual slide map of sputum smears by auto-stitching.
abstract: Under a microscope, only a small field of a slide can be seen through the eye piece. A digital replication of a large section of the smear on a slide is desirable for several applications, including image-based auto-positioning for automated microscopy and telepathology. To achieve this, images of the various fields on the slide can be captured and stitched automatically to form a virtual slide map. We compared two auto-stitching methods, namely the geometric hashing and the scale invariant feature transform (SIFT), applied to images of tuberculosis-infected sputum smears. Experimental results show good agreement between the two methods.
authors.affiliation: MRC/UCT Medical Imaging Research Unit, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: Bhavin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: Tania S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Douglas
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013183:Sputum / Q000166:cytology*; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000473:pathology*