Several critical components need to come together to form a machine vision system. This includes the sensor (typically within a camera) that captures a picture for inspection, the processing hardware (a PC or vision appliance) and software algorithms to render and communicate the results. In addition, lighting, staging, and lenses are required to set up a machine vision system.

Industrial machine vision cameras and sensors are finding their way into applications both on and off the manufacturing floor.

Analog cameras dominated the early years of machine vision systems, offering adequate performance, a simple interface, and a moderate price.