A means to rapidly count colonies of microorganisms on nutrient plates was developed. The practice may be used to speed many practices, procedures, and tests used in biology, microbiology, and medicine that rely in whole or in part on the ability to culture, enumerate, and assess microorganisms. The measurement tool, measurement process, and method of analysis will enable previously unattainable research into bacterial activity. The method is novel and valuable because it makes use of sensitive optical metrology to resolve growth of microorganisms much sooner than can be done with traditional methods. In short, white-light interferometry (WLI) is used to obtain high resolution 3-D profiles of microorganisms that have been placed on nutrient enriched agar plates. The resulting profiles have very fine sub-micron depth resolution and the ability to see single cells and microorganisms. Images may be captured at high magnification to observe a single microbe as it grows into a microcolony or images may be captured at low magnification to observe many microorganisms at once. Images are captured non-destructively which enables monitoring over time without apparent disruption microbial growth, activity, and processes. Traditional colony counting methods take 24 hrs for fast growing bacteria and up to 3 weeks for some species. This invention will allow researchers and clinicians to count colony forming units in a bacterial culture sample as early as 1-4 hrs after being applied to an agar plate. This invention would also require less material (smaller and fewer plates) and fewer resources (less incubation space and less time for incubation). A company that makes and sells WLI optical profilers would be able to modify their product hardware and software to accommodate this method. It could be sold as an add-on to their existing instrument. Traditionally, WLI instruments have been used to examine non-living hard surfaces (e.g., printed circuit boards, hard disks, machined parts, etc.). Licensing this technology would allow a maker of white-light interferometry instruments to expand into new markets, especially biomedical research and clinical testing. Users of this invention would benefit by performing colony counting much faster while using few resources and providing other relevant and significant morphological details that are not measurable by other means. This invention can be summarized as three major parts: A method to prepare, image, and analyze microbial cultures with WLI such that CFUs and other morphological traits can be rapidly assessed Culture plates with surface properties and optical characteristics that enhance and enable WLI imaging An integrated WLI imaging system for bacterial culture analysis that may include: modifications to existing WLI instruments or components such as sample holders or imaging stages, automated or semi-automated analysis routines implemented in software, and customized culture plates designed for WLI imaging. Full details of experiments done to demonstrate this invention are included in the appended manuscript.