# Cell colony survival mapping in a particular spatial pattern

I am attempting to spatially map the cell survival in a given scanned image of a cell flask. Quick background: the cells have received a high dose of irradiation (protons/X-rays) delivered through a grid so that some regions are covered from the irradiation, whereas other regions are not. After scanning such cell colonies, the images are then fed into a segmentation algorithm (in which I have developed using Matlab), centroid coordinates ($$c_i = (x_i,y_i)$$) of each detected viable colony are provided.

I have done this type of assessment for grid ‘stripes’, where I have counted colonies within a band along a single dimension ($$x$$) and tested for different band widths $$\Delta x$$ (as shown in the left figure below). However, my issue is for grid ‘holes’ (see right figure below) – how can I perform the same type of assessment for cell colony survival in two dimensions ($$x$$ and $$y$$) given the centroid coordinates? Do I have to “think” radially?

Thank you in advance for any guidance or help to this problem.

• Please include the figures you reference. – whuber Feb 11 at 21:02
• The figure is uploaded - any suggestions? Apologies if this question is poorly formulated – tehm0n Feb 16 at 13:09
• Thank you: as I had hoped, it's a fascinating problem. Do you know what the hole diameters ought to be beforehand? How about the number of holes? Their locations? – whuber Feb 16 at 14:31
• Thank you for the response! The geometry of the holes are, sort of, preset by using a tungsten collimator with either stripe or circular openings to pass the irradiation in such pattern. The diameter of each hole opening is 5 mm, while there will always be 7 holes at the presented locations when the tungsten collimator is placed directly on top of the flask. – tehm0n Feb 17 at 8:05