Agar plates are widely used in the biomedical field as a medium in which to artificially grow bacteria, algae or fungi. Agar plates (Petri dishes) are used routinely in microbiology laboratories in order to identify the type of micro-organism responsible for infections. Such diagnoses are based on counting the number and type of bacterial colonies growing in the Petri dish. The count of bacterial colonies is a time consuming task prone to human error, so interest in automated counting systems has increased in the recent years. One of the difficulties of automatizing the counting process is the presence of markers and annotations made in the lower part of the agar plate. Efficient removal of such markers can increase the accuracy of the bacterial counting system.
The colony counting problem can be easily solved by using the "CountThings By Camera" mobile app. You only need to take a photo, click to identify, and the whole process can be automatically completed, and the accuracy can also be adjusted.
You can download it at google play named "CountThings By Camera"