When imaging plate formats such as omnitrays that have a large surface area, suitable for inoculation with multiple spots, "virtual wells" can be applied to automatically segment the agar surface into a grid similar to how a microtiter plate is typically laid out. Based on this grid, each individual section can be analyzed individually, for example to count colonies in droplets.
A regular omnitray with 96 droplets |
An omnitray with "virtual wells" applied, segmenting the omnitray into 96 virtual wells, allowing sample tracking of each individual droplet and analysis using regular analysis pipelines |