Team 341 Miss Daisy had an outstanding SmartDashboard-based vision system for the 2012 season, which they graciously published here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2676?. This would probably be a good place to start.
As for the camera in SmartDashboard, did you use the standalone SmartDashboard vision installer? Without this the SmartDashboard will be missing the camera widget. Also, make sure you have enabled anonymous viewing in the Axis camera settings. See this page for instructions:
http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/...sion-installer