Beyond 'Smart': The PC Camera Arrives

Machine vision systems have three basic components: a camera to acquire images; software to extract actionable information about the objects in the images; and a computer to run the image processing software. In the 1990s, the machine vision industry placed all three components into a single housing and called it a “smart camera” to reduce the cost and size of the vision system, and improve its usability for manufacturing process controls and quality inspection.