Ask the Experts

I am not aware of any white papers on what you are trying to do. Typically defect detection capability varies widely depending on your materials, vision system/camera used, lighting/optics, etc. What i would suggest instead is you get an evaluation on your application performed by several machine vision manufacturers. Typically they will do these evaluations for free or for some small fee depending on how difficult the inspection is going to be. The critical step for this is to gather some representative sample for the manufacturers to look at. Some good sample selected from different batches so they get an idea of your normal process variation, some reject samples from the same batches. Ideally if possible you want to get some borderline good and some borderline bad samples. These marginal samples are absolute gold for the application evaluations. At a minimum this will tell you if your application is possible or completely impossible with very low investment.

Gocator also gives a 2D and 3D Image. Not sure how easy it will be to pull those into a Keyence System or if that is cheaper than using 2 cameras, but something to look into.

Yes there are industrial camera solutions that will work for you. Many manufacturers do 5MP Industrial Cameras and a few have higher resolution available. You'll want a good lens. Edmund is a good place to start. The rule of thumb you want to be 5x - 10x your resolution. In this case you would get 1M/2448 pixels = 0.4mm/pixel (Target 0.05mm). You might consider 2 lower resolution cameras with a known calibrated distance between them? Unless you need to measure 0m-1m you can save money and get better resolution. The other important thing would be your budget. I'd suggest Cognex because they are relatively easy to program and have the 5MP camera, but you are looking at about $12K of hardware plus. There are lower cost alternatives, but they are harder to program. I'd look at Cognex VisionPro, Data Logic, or Halcon if you want to go that route, particularly multi-camera. No matter what leave some money for good lights. Never Skimp on Lights. Good Luck!!!

Color inspection is a difficult task as it is so lighting dependent. Start with a GREAT really stable White light and Color Balance Target. If you want to verify color quality at the beginning of a run (to make sure your color is perfect), use a spectrophotometer. If you are trying to inspect during production, you would be looking at a color vision system. There is a pretty broad variation in the tools available from one manufacturer to the next. You can usually make RGB systems work, but it can be really confusing. I would look for one that supports HSI (Hue Saturation Intensity) or a variation of this. It makes more sense to human beings that way. For tools Color Histogram or Color meters will generally tell you what color you are looking at in a specific area. Color filters will also help with the tasks looking for variations. Color Blob is great for locating colors (for example sorting Skittles by color). I mostly use Cognex InSight for this. Good Luck!

Based on your Educator/Researcher title, I am going to assume you are looking to do something yourself or with your students. If you are looking for a turn key solution, just say the word. I know there are many extremely qualified AIA Integrators that will be happy to help. If you are going it alone, I would suggest you might start with lenses from Opto Engineering. They sell a couple lenses that really lend themselves to your application as well as lighting. Check out the Pericentric and Hypercentric Lenses. The next thing is to find some software to work with. I'd probably direct you to Cognex. They came out of the education community, they generally will help with some of the evaluation for free, their VisionPro Designer package is pretty reasonable to start with, and as you get more experience or your application leads you into Deep Learning they have that available as well.

Good Luck!!!