IMAGE FORMING METHOD USING SECONDARY ELECTRONS FROM OBJECT FOR NOISE ELIMINATION

An image forming method includes a first step of irradiating a beam onto an object, and using an intensity corresponding to an image area onto which the beam was irradiated as an intensity of a pixel at the center of the image area, and scanning a beam throughout the inspection area of the object to obtain an image within the inspection area as a collection of pixels arranged at intervals smaller than a beam diameter; and a second step of assigning a pixel to be processed and neighboring pixels with coefficients in accordance with a beam intensity distribution, multiplying the intensity of each pixel by each assigned coefficient, determining a new intensity of the pixel to be processed in accordance with the sum of respective products, and repeating the new intensity determining process for all pixels necessary to be processed. In the second step, the value of the coefficients for those pixels except on the scanning direction may be reduced. Further, a third step may be provided for linearly-transforming the intensities so as to make the intensities of respective pixels to be distributed within a predetermined range.