In the last five years, vision has really blossomed in terms of discrete manufacturing, especially in packaging quality control. Vision systems have historically been prominent in the semiconductor wafer manufacturing realm, said National Instruments' Kyle Voosen, vision product manager in Austin, Texas. And even today, half of vision technology remains in the semiconductors and printed circuit board industry.

When you are faced with your next optical inspection system or machine vision design, it will help  you to first learn the ins and outs of coupling choices and what each type has to offer. These multi-purpose systems require high precision components for a number of tasks where they all but replace the human eye with a camera.