| 摘要 |
The present invention provides a contour extraction technique capable of resolving not only spuriousness, duplication, or branches in the contours of a sample pattern, but also discontinuities in the contours. A thinning process is performed with respect to design data for generating a sample pattern, and pattern in/out definition information defining the inside and outside of a pattern formed on a target sample is generated. Then, based on the Marker Controlled Watershed Segmentation method, region segmentation is performed by expanding regions indicated by the pattern in/out definition information while referencing pixel values of an edge-enhanced image of a target sample image, and pattern contours are generated. |
