ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,548,167, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to FEI Co. (Hillsboro, Ore.).
"Automated region selection for auto sweep" was invented by Umesh Adiga (Portland, Ore.), Derek Higgins (Scappoose, Ore.), Mark Biedrzycki (Beaverton, Ore.) and Melanie Doud (Hillsboro, Ore.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Sample regions of interest (ROIs) for use in autofocus procedures are identified based on a gradient image of the sample. ROIs with gradient values greater that a threshold are selected, and eigenvalues of the associated image matrices are determined. ROIs with suitable variation in eigenvalues such as at least two relatively large eigenvalues are as...