Patent ID: 8369569

Claim:
A method for detecting an occurrence of a shape which has been fractured into a configuration of primitive shapes which is different from a desired configuration, comprising: selecting a fractured-shape instantiation in a first mask-pattern-description, wherein the fractured-shape instantiation represents a fracturing of a first shape, wherein the fractured-shape instantiation comprises a set of primitive shapes which are arranged in a particular configuration, and wherein the first mask-pattern-description comprises multiple occurrences of the first shape; generating, by computer, a filtered mask-pattern-description which includes identified primitive shapes in the first mask-pattern-description, wherein each primitive shape in the identified primitive shapes matches at least one primitive shape in the set of primitive shapes; identifying a first set of shape occurrences from the filtered mask-pattern-descriptions, wherein each shape occurrence in the first set of shape occurrences matches the first shape; identifying a second set of shape occurrences from the first mask-pattern-description, wherein each shape occurrence in the second set of shape occurrences matches the first shape; and generating a third set of shape occurrences which includes: shape occurrences from the first set of shape occurrences which are not in the second set of shape occurrences, and shape occurrences from the second set of shape occurrences which are not in the first set of shape occurrences; wherein the third set of shape occurrences facilitates identifying occurrences of the first shape which have been fractured differently than the fractured-shape instantiation.