Signal-to-noise metric for annotation guidance, dl model tunability, and robustness

A non-transitory computer-readable medium, storing program instructions executable on a computer system for performing a computer-implemented method for determining a signal-to-noise metric for locations of interest on a specimen, wherein the computer-implemented method comprises:

• finding a location of interest in images of a specimen generated by an imaging subsystem and acquiring a test image and a reference image for the location of interest;
• finding patch images in the reference image that are similar to a patch image in the test image at the location of interest;
• identifying candidate patch images in the test image at locations of the found patch images;
• eliminating any of the identified candidate patch images containing defect pixels thereby generating a population of background patch images in the test image;
• calculating one or more statistics of non-defect signals from the population of background patch images;
• and
• calculating a signal-to-noise metric for the location of interest from a signal for the location of interest in the test image and the one or more statistics.

A computer-implemented method for determining a signal-to-noise metric for locations of interest on a specimen, comprising:

• finding a location of interest in images of a specimen generated by an imaging subsystem and acquiring a test image and a reference image for the location of interest;
• finding patch images in the reference image that are similar to a patch image in the test image at a location of the location of interest;
• identifying candidate patch images in the test image at locations of the found patch images;
• eliminating any of the identified candidate patch images containing defect pixels thereby generating a population of background patch images in the test image;
• calculating one or more statistics of non-defect signals from the population of background patch images;
• and
• calculating a signal-to-noise metric for the location of interest from a signal for the location of interest in the test image and the one or more statistics, wherein the finding a location of interest, acquiring, finding patch images, identifying, eliminating, calculating one or more statistics, and calculating a signal-to-noise metric steps are performed by a computer subsystem.