JP3002719B2 - Environmental cleanliness measurement system using a small biological monitor - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using a microbiological monitor for measuring the cleanliness of an environment by enclosing the microscopic organisms in a medium for culturing the microscopic organisms and repeatedly photographing the medium with a camera. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The intention of a living space aiming at energy saving and comfort is to improve the hermeticity and insulation performance of a house and the closing property of the living space, and to mite, mold and house dust. Have led to an increase in indoor pollutants (allergens) such as bronchial asthma, rhinitis and dermatitis due to these allergens.

Until now, the mainstream methods for controlling and removing mite allergens have been to adjust the greenhouse temperature in the room, use chemicals, and remove them with a vacuum cleaner. However, there is no practical method for evaluating them easily and precisely, and there are many cases where the dwellers are not comfortable.

[0004] It is very difficult to control allergens that cannot be observed with the naked eye, and only some specialized research institutions can directly observe the effects on mites. When it comes to allergen control, it is important to deviate from the conventional uniform direction and fully reflect the efficiency of the system and the needs of residents. In order to derive a simpler and more effective direction, an approach from the microbiological point of view of the target mite is important. Allergen-causing ticks are invisible to the naked eye, transparent and several hundred microns in length
, Mites (house dust mite) living in the room,
Mainly Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus of the family Pyroglyphidae
(Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, Dp) and Dermatophagoides farinae (Dp).

[0005] In order to analyze the air condition in the environment of a dwelling unit, a factory, a work place, or the like, for example, a dedicated analyzer must be prepared, so that there is a problem that labor, time and cost are required. In order to detect each of a large number of environmental pollutants, a dedicated detection method is required for each, and it cannot be easily realized. In addition, as a primary screening for determining the status of contamination, there is no suitable device, and it is not possible to quantitatively evaluate the activity of living organisms such as mites.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, and is to measure the cleanliness of the environment with a simple system by means of a micro-biological monitor.

[0007] For this purpose, the present invention provides an environmental cleanup by a microbiological monitor that measures microenvironmental cleanliness by enclosing microbiological organisms whose activity ability changes are observed in accordance with the cleanliness of the environment in a medium for culturing the microbiological organisms. A degree measuring device, a photographing means for photographing the culture medium, an image storing means for taking in and storing a plurality of photographed images continuously photographed by the photographing means, and a plurality of images stored in the image storing means. A background image creating means for creating a background image by integrating and averaging the captured images, and a difference between the background image created by the background image creating means and each of the plurality of captured images. Image extraction means for extracting an activity image, and environmental measurement means for analyzing the activity amount of the small creature based on the activity image extracted by the image extraction means and measuring the cleanliness of the environment based on the activity amount. It is characterized in.

The environment measuring means accumulates a plurality of activity images at predetermined time intervals, accumulates the pixels of the microscopic creatures appearing in the activity image, and calculates an environment corresponding to the integrated value of the accumulated pixels. The cleanliness is measured, an environmental abnormality determination value is set, the determined value is compared with a value obtained by integrating the pixels of the microscopic organism, and the environmental abnormality is determined on the condition that the integrated value falls below the determination value. The determination is performed.

Further, the medium for culturing the micro-organism is
It is characterized in that the bottom is made of a culture medium for micro-organisms, the upper surface is made of a transparent plate, and the opposing side walls are made of mesh to take in the air of the environment to be measured, and mites are used as micro-organisms.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a view showing an embodiment of an environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using a microscopic biological monitor according to the present invention, wherein 1 is an image processing apparatus, 2 is a biological cartridge, 3 is a camera, 4 is an air introduction path, and 11 is an image. Signal input processing unit,
12 is a photographed image storage memory, 13 is an activity analysis unit, 14
Is an analysis data determination output unit, 15 is a background image storage memory,
16 is an activity image storage memory, 21 is a transparent body, 22 is a mesh, and 23 is a culture medium.

In FIG. 1, an image processing apparatus 1 captures an image from a camera 3, generates a background image, extracts an activity image of a small creature using the background image, and analyzes the activity amount. It has an image signal input processing unit 11, a captured image storage memory 12, an activity amount analysis unit 13, an analysis data determination output unit 14, a background image storage memory 15, and an activity image storage memory 16. The biological cartridge 2 is for observing the behavior of the mites in the culture medium 23 from the transparent body 21 made of glass, plastic, or the like on the top surface, by taking in air from the side through a mesh 22 of, for example, about 50 μm, enclosing the mites in the culture medium 23 at the bottom. It is. The camera 3 is, for example, a CCD micro camera that captures an image of the culture medium 23 from above the transparent body 21 of the biological cartridge 2. One screen is composed of 512 × 480 pixels, and each pixel has 8 bits and 256 gradations. Outputs the captured image represented by.
In this case, one tick corresponds to more than ten pixels.

In the image processing apparatus 1, a captured image storage memory 12 stores a captured image of one screen.
The background image storage memory 15 stores a background image created by integrating and averaging a plurality of captured images stored in the captured image storage memory 12 and stores the background image in the activity image storage memory 1.
Numeral 6 stores the activity image obtained by removing the background image from the captured image storage memory 12. Image signal input processing unit 11
Is for taking in an image of the culture medium 23 taken by the camera 3 and taking in one screen at a predetermined interval and storing it in the taken image storage memory 12. The activity amount analysis unit 13 creates a background image, accumulates the activity image, and analyzes the activity amount. In the creation of the background image, the background that does not change by performing integration and averaging of the images in a certain period is used. In creating an image and storing the activity image, the captured image is compared with the background image to extract and store the changing activity image, and the analysis of the activity amount is performed by integrating the activity images. Ask. The analysis data determination output unit 14 determines the environmental cleanliness by comparing the activity amount with a set value, for example, and outputs the result. The larger the value of the activity amount, the more active the tick activity. Therefore, in a normal environment, if the activity amount is lower than the set value, it can be determined that there is some abnormality.

Next, the activity analysis will be described. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a flow of processing of the activity amount analysis unit, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the flow of image processing. As shown in FIG. 2, the activity amount analyzer first loads a background image from the captured image storage memory 12 to create a background image (step S11), and integrates the captured images (step S12). This is integrated for each pixel.
Then, a predetermined image, for example, 20 sec every 0.5 sec
c, It is determined whether or not the 40 images have been integrated (step S13). When the integration of the images is repeated and the integration processing of the predetermined image is completed, a background image is created by obtaining the average value, and the background image memory is created. 15 (step S1).
4).

When the background image is created, the measurement image is taken in continuously (step S15), and the measurement image is compared with the background image to determine the difference between the measurement image and the activity image. (Step S1)
6). This is repeated for a predetermined image, for example, 0.5 sec.
It is determined whether or not 80 images have been captured every 40 sec (step S17). When a predetermined image is captured, the activity images stored in the activity image memory 16 are integrated to evaluate the activity image (step S17). S18). Then, the activity of the tick is evaluated from the integrated value of the activity image, and the evaluation result is output (step S19). In the extraction of the activity image, for example, a difference between the captured image in the captured image storage memory 12 and the background image in the background image memory 15 is obtained, and then each pixel is binarized by a threshold value to be extracted as a binary image. It is stored in the memory 16 and one image is counted in the integration of the activity images. Therefore, if the activity of the mites is active, the integrated value of the activity image increases.

When a photographed image of a medium containing a tick as shown in FIG. 3A is taken in from a camera, the photographed image of the tick 32 is repeatedly obtained by integrating such photographed images repeatedly as described above. Such background images are fixed and therefore integrated at the same density, whereas moving ticks 3
The image of No. 1 is dispersed and has no effect on the integration of the background. Therefore, if the 40 images are integrated and the density is divided by 40, the image of the active tick 31 disappears.
A background image as shown in (B) can be created.
Thus, when the difference between the captured image shown in FIG. 3A and the background image is obtained, only the image of the active mite 31 can be extracted as shown in FIG. 3C. A plurality of such activity images, for example, 40 sec, 8 every 0.5 sec, 8
By accumulating and integrating zero images, as shown in FIG. 3D, the size of the change area and the degree of stacking (density) are obtained according to the degree of tick activity.

According to the environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus of the present invention using a microscopic biological monitor, a background image is created in 20 seconds while an activity image is extracted and integrated in 40 seconds while taking in the air of the environment whose cleanness is to be measured. By repeating the above-described processing, the degree of tick activity can be evaluated by tick activity based on the size and accumulation of the change areas. The larger the active area and the larger the value accumulated as the change area, the more active the mite activity can be evaluated, and the cumulative value within the observation range can be used as the evaluation index. For example, in the case where the activity of mites decreases with time due to air taken in, the number of mites decreases and the cumulative value decreases each time the background image is updated.

FIG. 4 is a graph showing the correlation between the mite activity and the cumulative value. In the case where the target dust mite is relatively large,
The cumulative value y and the number of dust mites x (animal / 20 mg)

[0018]

[Number 1] having a correlation ^{y = + 0.0017x 3 -0.9988x 2 +} 444.84x + 1743.2, is shown in FIG 4 that shown this. If the target dust mite is relatively small, the cumulative value y and the dust mite count x (animal / 20 mg)

[0019]

[Number 2] having a correlation ^{y = -0.0014x 3 + 0.2363x 2 +} 2405.8x + 36099. In the former case, the dust mite is active in the medium in multiple layers, and in the latter case, it is active in one layer. As described above, in the present invention, the correlation coefficient between the accumulated value and the activity (activity) of the mite itself can be derived by a third-order polynomial approximation on the log-logarithm.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications are possible. For example, in the above embodiment, the activity of ticks was analyzed, but the same measurement may be performed by analyzing the activity of other micro-organisms or microorganisms other than ticks. In addition, the cycle of the creation of the background image and the analysis of the activity amount can be appropriately set and changed according to the purpose of the measurement and the situation. In addition, depending on the micro-organisms or microorganisms used, various sensors such as smoke detectors, gas detectors,
It can also be used for air pollution detection devices in factories and workplaces, etc., and is used for inspection of chemicals using tick, inspection of building materials, analysis of the effects of activities such as brightness, sound, electromagnetic waves, radiation, etc. of mites can do. Therefore, the air introduction path for taking in air may be omitted, and the air introduction path may be simply installed at the measurement position.

[0021]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the activity of mites in a specific environment is directly photographed using a CCD micro camera, and the behavior of the mites is analyzed from the image. Since the cleanliness of the environment is measured, it is possible to analyze the effects of chemicals, building materials, equipment, indoor environment, building structure, etc. on mites engineeringly. This analysis can be an effective tool for building a healthy and comfortable home. In addition, the use of mites as a sensor for the degree of pollution, the activity of the mites is captured with an image, the activity of the mites is constantly monitored, and the image information is evaluated quantitatively to monitor the status of environmental pollution. The presence or absence can be determined. Further, the correlation coefficient between the accumulated value of the activity image and the activity (activity) of the mite itself can be derived by image processing by a third-order polynomial approximation on a logarithmic scale.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of an environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using a micro living thing monitor according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a processing flow of an activity amount analysis unit.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a flow of image processing.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a correlation between a tick activity and a cumulative value.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image processing apparatus, 2 ... Biological cartridge, 3 ... Camera, 4 ... Air introduction path, 11 ... Image signal input processing part, 12
... photographed image storage memory, 13 ... activity amount analysis unit, 14 ... analysis data judgment output unit, 15 ... background image storage memory, 16
... Activity image storage memory, 21 ... Transparent body, 22 ... Mesh, 23 ... Medium

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Keigo Takeuchi 1-3-2 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo Shimizu Corporation (56) References JP-A-63-133060 (JP, A) JP-A-Hei 8-147475 (JP, A) JP-A-6-223188 (JP, A) JP-A-7-121675 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06T 1/00 , 7 / 00,7 / 20 G01D 21/00

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] An environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using a microbiological monitor for measuring microenvironmental cleanliness by enclosing microbiological organisms whose activity capacity changes according to the cleanliness of the environment in a medium for culturing microbiological organisms. A photographing means for photographing the culture medium; an image storing means for taking in and storing a plurality of photographed images continuously photographed by the photographing means; and a plurality of photographed images stored in the image storing means. Background image creating means for creating a background image by integrating and averaging; extracting the activity image of the microscopic creature from a difference between the background image created by the background image creating means and each of the plurality of captured images And an environment measuring means for analyzing the activity amount of the small creatures based on the activity image extracted by the image extracting means and measuring the cleanliness of the environment based on the activity amount. Environmental cleanliness measurement apparatus according microbes monitor. 2. The environment measuring means accumulates a plurality of activity images at predetermined time intervals, accumulates the pixels of the small creatures appearing in the activity image, and calculates an environment corresponding to the integrated value of the accumulated pixels. The environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the cleanliness is measured. 3. The environment measuring means sets a determination value of an environmental abnormality, compares the determination value with a value obtained by integrating the pixels of the microscopic organism, and determines that the integrated value is smaller than the determination value. 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein an environmental abnormality is determined based on the condition.
An environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using the microbiological monitor described in the above. 4. The medium for culturing the micro-organisms is characterized in that the bottom is a micro-organism culture medium, the upper surface is a transparent plate, and the opposing side walls are made of a mesh to take in the air of the environment to be measured. An environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus using the micro-biological monitor according to claim 1. 5. The environmental cleanliness measuring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a tick is used as the small creature.