[Greg McKaskle]

Cameras are a sensor, so need to meet the rules for sensors. You are not required to use an Axis camera.

FIRST Choice contained some Microsoft USB cameras that are also available from most electronics stores. There are some cameras with USB connectors that are not supported, but many are. The features of the camera that you probably care about are ...

Manual or auto focus?
If auto, is it fast, or does it take quite awhile to adapt.

Does the camera have a crisp image?
I saw some ten dollar web cams with a lens that must be from a Cracker Jack box.

Does the camera deal well with both bright scenes and dark scenes?
Does it have manual settings that let you improve its performance?

Is it easy to mount to the robot?
So that it points where you intended and doesn't wiggle/wobble around.

You may not care that much about the camera being super-HD, since processing or transmitting those images will take a lot of bandwidth and time.

LabVIEW contained vision examples at kickoff. The latest update for Java and C++ has them too.

Greg McKaskle