ABSTRACT
Machine vision can actually be any system where visual information is sensed and analyzed by a computer system for the purpose of determining something about the manufacturing process. Such a system typically consists of a light source to highlight the features, some optics to image, a video camera to sense the scene, a digitizer to move the video into the computer format, and a computer system with analysis software (see diagram in Figure 2.1). By industry consensus, machine vision strictly relates only to the application of this technology to the manufacturing environment, which has been the mainstay of vision technology for the past 25 plus years.1-6 However, it is very telling of the maturity of the technology that applications in other areas such as medical image analysis, transportation, and security are being seriously pursued today.
