Patent Document ID: 6130959
Application ID: 08997925
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for inspecting a two-dimensional specimen digital representation of an actual arrangement of a specimen set of discrete objects along first and second dimensions in a given plane, the digital representation spanning a given area in the given plane, said inspecting comprising determining certain characteristics of the discrete objects within the specimen set, said certain characteristics including at least relative locations of the discrete objects within the set, said method comprising: selecting, from a reference digital representation of a reference set of reference objects along first and second dimensions in a given plane and spanning a given area in the given plane, a subset digital representation representing a reference subset of the set of the reference discrete objects, the subset of the reference discrete objects falling within a contiguous area which is only part of the given area of the reference digital representation, said selecting comprising comparing, from within said reference set, one set of spatial relationships, of one given reference object to corresponding neighbor objects, to another set of spatial relationships, of another given reference object to other corresponding neighbor objects, in order to choose a chosen given reference object and chosen corresponding neighbor objects nearby said given reference object, the chosen given reference object and chosen corresponding neighbor objects collectively forming a densest sample of said reference set in comparison to a non-chosen given reference object and non-chosen corresponding neighbor objects; based upon the selected subset, extracting from said actual arrangement, actual characteristic data representing said certain characteristics, wherein said extracting comprises extracting a first characteristic from said actual arrangement and a second characteristic from an ideal arrangement of object locations represented by said reference representation, said first characteristic and said second characteristic being invariant, to within an angular constant, under affine transformation of respective arrangements of said first characteristic and said second characteristic; and comparing said actual characteristic data to reference characteristic data derived using the selected subset to identify said certain characteristics.