Foreword
Brian H. Mayall
Microscope image processing dates back a half century when it was realized that
some of the techniques of image capture and manipulation, first developed for
television, could also be applied to images captured through the microscope.
Initial approaches were dependent on the application: automatic screening for
cancerous cells in Papanicolaou smears; automatic classification of crystal size
in metal alloys; automation of white cell differential count; measurement of
DNA content in tumor cells; analysis of chromosomes; etc. In each case, the
solution lay in the development of hardware (often analog) and algorithms
highly specific to the needs of the application. General purpose digital comput-
ing was still in its infancy. Available ...