Any references for the trade-off between software and mechanics/optics in industrial machine vision systems?
I have found some "proverbs" like:


  Never use software to compensate for a poor lighting system. 
  It is not cost effective and will result in a poor system design.
  
  It is cheaper to add a light-proof shroud to keep sun-light away from
  the object under inspection than to modify the software. Another
  universal truth which is often forgotten.
  
  Nothing exceeds the speed of light. Any processing that can be done
  optically will save a lot of computer processing later.


in the book "Intelligent Vision Systems for Industry" by Bruce G. Batchelor and Paul F. Whelan and also in B.G. Batchelor and P.F. Whelan (1994), "Machine vision systems: Proverbs, principles, prejudices and priorities", Proceedings of the SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 2347 - Machine Vision Applications, Architectures, and Systems Integration III, Boston (USA), pp 374-
383. (see here http://elm.eeng.dcu.ie/~whelanp/proverbs/proverbs.pdf).

The proverbs are also in the 2012 book "Machine Vision Handbook", Editors: Bruce G. Batchelor ISBN: 978-1-84996-168-4.