Efficient defect localization/segmentation for surface defect inspection

A system for surface defect inspection comprising:

• a camera for taking optical images from a sample of a surface having surface defects;
• a heatmap generator including a hardware processor for the system for surface defect inspection, the heatmap generator employing the hardware processor to convert the optical images having surface defects into heatmaps;
• a region of interest (ROI) extractor including the hardware processor, the ROI extractor employs the hardware processor to extract a region of heat map including the defect;
• and
• an analyzer including memory storing instructions to be performed by the hardware processor for classifying whether surface defects render a failed sample, the analyzer comparing the region of interest including the defect from the heat map to a binary classification model using a sliding window based voting mechanism to determine in the defect in greater than or less than a threshold failure value.

A non-transitory computer program product for surface defect inspection, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to:

• record, by the processor, an optical image of a surface including a defect;
• convert, by the processor, the optical image including the defect into a heat map;
• extract, by the processor, a region of interest including the defect from the heat map;
• and
• compare, by the processor, the region of interest including the defect from the heat map to a binary classification model using a sliding window based voting mechanism to determine if the defect is greater than or less than a threshold failure value.