Inspection Apparatus and Method for Producing Image for Inspection

An inspection apparatus comprising:

• an image pick-up unit provided with an optical video camera;
• an image obtaining unit which fetches a video image that contains a signal (noise) that is substantially independent of each frame of the video image obtained by picking up a video image of an inspection object by the image pick-up unit;
• a local alignment unit which locally aligns a plurality of frames of the video image with different time phases;
• a frame synthesizing unit which synthesizes the plurality of frames of the video image aligned by the local alignment unit for generating an image formed of the synthesized frames with an SN ratio higher than the SN ratio of each of the frames before frame synthesis;
• and
• an image output unit for displaying or recording an image formed of the synthesis frame generated by the frame synthesizing unit,
• a noise amount measurement unit which measures an amount of the signal (noise) substantially independent of the respective frames of the video image fetched from the optical video camera of the image pick-up unit in the image obtaining unit;
• and
• a processing parameter change unit which changes a processing parameter for processing the frame of the video image or the synthesized frames in the local alignment unit, the frame synthesizing unit or the image output unit in accordance with the amount of the signal as noise substantially independent of the respective frames of the video image, which is measured by the noise amount measurement unit.