1. A computer-implemented method for automatic detection and quantification of important features on a surface of a semiconductor wafer by a dimensional metrology tool comprising the steps of: specifying user defined at least one feature type of interest; generating a list of feature attributes for each said at least one feature type of interest; acquiring wafer interferometer data measuring said surface of said semiconductor wafer including surface height measurement data, using said dimensional metrology tool; calculating from said wafer interferometer data surface maps of said wafer, wherein said surface maps of said wafer include at least one of: front and back surface height maps, thickness map, and shape map; using said wafer surface maps to automatically detect and classify features of said at least one feature type of interest according to said list of feature attributes; automatically defining feature object regions bounding said features according to said detecting and classifying of said features, wherein said feature object region includes feature object region pixels; defining an object based measurement region around each said feature; and calculating with a computer user defined measurement metrics of said features as located in said feature object regions.