A Color Image Processing Pipeline for Digital Microscope

Digital microscope has found wide application in the field of biology, medicine et al. A digital microscope differs from traditional optical microscope in that there is no need to observe the sample through an eyepiece directly, because the optical image is projected directly on the CCD/CMOS camera. However, because of the imaging difference between human eye and sensor, color image processing pipeline is needed for the digital microscope electronic eyepiece to get obtain fine image. The color image pipeline for digital microscope, including the procedures that convert the RAW image data captured by sensor into real color image, is of great concern to the quality of microscopic image. The color pipeline for digital microscope is different from digital still cameras and video cameras because of the specific requirements of microscopic image, which should have the characters of high dynamic range, keeping the same color with the objects observed and a variety of image post-processing. In this paper, a new color image processing pipeline is proposed to satisfy the requirements of digital microscope image. The algorithm of each step in the color image processing pipeline is designed and optimized with the purpose of getting high quality image and accommodating diverse user preferences. With the proposed pipeline implemented on the digital microscope platform, the output color images meet the various analysis requirements of images in the medicine and biology fields very well. The major steps of color imaging pipeline proposed include: black level adjustment, defect pixels removing, noise reduction, linearization, white balance, RGB color correction, tone scale correction and gamma correction.