Microfluidic device observation apparatus

Abstract

A microfluidic device observation apparatusconfigured to observe a microfluidic devicewhere, in at least a partial region of the microfluidic device, a plurality of flow paths having same width are arranged in parallel, includes: an image acquiring unitconfigured to acquire an image of the microfluidic device; an extracted pixel selection unitconfigured to select an extracted pixel from a plurality of pixels forming the acquired image based on luminance values of the pixels, using a predetermined criterion; a feature pixel group detection unitconfigured to detect a plurality of feature pixel groups among a plurality of extracted pixel groups each including a predetermined number of the extracted pixels that are continuously arranged in a line shape, where the plurality of feature pixel groups are parallel to each other with a predetermined degree or higher; a flow path boundary pixel group selection unitconfigured to select flow path boundary pixel groups among the plurality of feature pixel groups, where a distance between the flow path boundary pixel groups corresponds to a width of the flow pathsto; and a flow path image extraction unitconfigured to identify a position of boundary of one or the plurality of flow pathstobased on a position of the flow path boundary pixel group in the image and extract an image of each of the flow pathsto