Abstract: In a defect inspecting apparatus, having contrast, brightness and appearance of a target for inspection and detection sensitivity of a defect changed depending on optical system conditions, and adapted to perform inspection by selecting an optimal test condition, even an unskilled user can easily select an optimal optical condition by quantitatively displaying evaluation values side by side when optical system conditions are changed. Moreover, by selecting an evaluation item having highest satisfaction based on a result of a series of test inspection, an optimal test condition can be automatically selected.

Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide a defect detection method and its apparatus which can adjust sensitivity easily by managing both reduction in the number of false reports and highly-sensitive detection of a defect using single threshold value setting in comparison inspection that compares an image to be inspected with a reference image to detect a defect judging from a difference between the images. According to the present invention, adjusting the brightness before inspection so that a difference becomes small at the edges of a high-contrast pattern in a target image enables reduction in the number of false reports caused by an alignment error, and achievement of highly-sensitive defect inspection using a low threshold value, without increasing the threshold value.

Abstract: The present invention provides a high-precision alignment method, device and code for inspections that compare an inspection image with a reference image and detect defects from their differences. In one embodiment an inspection image and a reference image are divided into multiple regions. An offset is calculated for each pair of regions. Out of these multiple offsets, only the offsets with high reliability are used to determine an offset for the entire image. This allows high-precision alignment with little or no dependency on pattern density or shape, differences in luminance between images, and uneven luminance within individual images. Also, detection sensitivity is adjusted as necessary by monitoring alignment precision.

Abstract: The present invention consists in a three-dimensional vision system comprising a three-dimensional vision sensor which projects slit-like light on an object to-be-handled and which reads out a resulting slit image, an image input portion which controls the slit-like light to be lit up and put out and also controls the read-out of the slit image and which performs extraction processing of differential signals as to image signals read out, and an image processor which performs required controls concerning said image input portion and which processes image data of said image input portion; an image with the projected slit-like light and an image without it being sequentially sampled on an identical scanning line of the read-out image so as to obtain the differential image between them, thereby to extract a light segmentation line based on the projected slit-like light.