STEMvision™ is a bench-top instrument and computer system designed specifically for automated imaging and counting of hematopoietic colonies in the colony-forming unit assay. This system is meant to be used with MethoCult™ media and meniscus-free SmartDish™ cultureware. Instead of manually identifying and counting colonies using a microscope, the user can load a SmartDish culture plate into STEMvision. The instrument then captures an image of each 35 mm well in approximately 30 seconds, and uses image analysis software to identify and classify colonies produced by the four major subtypes of hematopoietic progenitor cells.