There is disclosed a scanning electron microscope capable of removing the
effects of vibrations on image information easily and reliably by
detecting variations in the relative position between a specimen chamber
holding a specimen therein and the specimen stage. The microscope has an
image-processing portion that obtains information about the relative
position between the specimen stage and the specimen chamber from a
measurement unit when the beam is scanned. Based on the information about
the relative position, a pixel position-correcting unit makes corrections
to pixel positions indicated by the image information obtained by the
scanning. An image creation unit creates image elements to eliminate
pixel dropouts or pixel duplication produced by the aforementioned
corrections. An image extraction unit extracts an image to be displayed.