Components of a machine vision system?

A typical machine vision system will be part of an automated production process consisting of the following components:

- One or more digital cameras (monochrome or color) with suitable optics for acquiring images, such as lenses to focus the desired field of view onto the image sensor and suitable, often very specialized, light sources.
- A synchronizing sensor for part detection (often an optical or magnetic sensor) to trigger image acquisition and processing and some form of actuators to sort, route or reject defective parts
- A computer program (normally running on the latest Windows 7 OS) to process images, detect, measure, compare etc in order to confirm a quality criteria has been met or to provide type verification or robot control to another control system.
- Input/Output hardware (e.g. digital I/O) or communication links (e.g. Industrial Ethernet, ProfiBUS etc) to report results and to automatically reject components.
("Intelligent" or "smart" cameras combine the above into a single unit).

The aim of a machine vision inspection system is typically to check the compliance of a test piece with certain requirements, such as prescribed dimensions, serial numbers, presence of components, etc. The complete task can frequently be subdivided into independent stages, each checking a specific criterion.