Is there any software that could be used to rapidly (quicker than humans) count the eggs laid by Drosophila on a substrate by placing them under a microscope with a camera attached? The eggs are laid on the surface of the food and have a fairly uniform shape - we regularly have to count the number of eggs in >200 vials, which can take a over 4-5 hours per 100 vials.
I wonder if there is some software which could be linked to a microscope with mounted camera connected to a computer, the software could then count from the live feed or a quickly taken photograph. It wouldn't have to be perfect but as long as it could be as accurate as humans (which is surprisingly low from our experience - we count up to a set amount then remove the rest, e.g. if I was aiming to leave 180 eggs I would be quite happy to get anywhere between 150-200 eggs). It would be using a stereo-microscope (aka dissection microscope) with a mounted camera.
The surface of the food with eggs looks something like this -> 
purely for illustration, taken with iPhone - real images on microscope would be able to get closer (food surface could fill screen) and have more uniform lighting to give better contrast (this was taken to show in a talk so I wanted pretty rather than practical). The bottom two quarters of the food in this picture would be similar to the real result, just much closer...
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