Estimation of transmittance spectra from multiband micrographs of fungi and its application to segmentation of conidia and hyphae

Transmittance spectra of fungi were estimated from seven-band optical micro graphs. An optical microscope adjusted with a single-chip CCD camera with s even band filters was used for image acquisition. The Wiener method was app lied to estimate the transmittance spectra of five species that belong to o ne genus of fungi. The Wiener estimation operator was calculated from trans mittance spectra of 16 color transparencies and the corresponding camera re sponses. The Estimated transmittance spectra were used for segmentation of conidia and hyphae in fungal optical micrographs; then the competitive lear ning in an artificial neural network was applied to the segmentation. (C) 1 999 Optical Society of America.