Image analysis: a consumer's guide.

The last years have seen an explosion of systems in image analysis. It is hard for the pathologist or the cytologist to make the right choice of equipment. All machines are stupid, and the only valuable thing is the human work put into it. So make your benefit of the work other people have done for you. Chose a method largely used on many systems and which has proved fertile in many domains and not only for your specific to day's application: Mathematical Morphology, to which are to be added the linear convolutions present on all machines is a strong candidate for becoming such a method. The paper illustrates a working day of an ideal system: research and diagnostic directed work during the working hours, automatic screening of cervical (or other) smears during night.