Feature-oriented positioning (FOP) is a method of precise movement of the scanning microscope probe across the surface under investigation. With this method, surface features (objects) are used as reference points for microscope probe attachment. Actually, FOP is a simplified variant of the feature-oriented scanning (FOS). With FOP, no topographical image of a surface is acquired. Instead, a probe movement by surface features is only carried out from the start surface point A (neighborhood of the start feature) to the destination point B (neighborhood of the destination feature) along some route that goes through intermediate features of the surface. The method may also be referred to by another name—object-oriented positioning (OOP).