The webSPECTOR is a non-application specific surface inspection system, which can be tailored to each application through a modular design. For example, for high data rate applications such as painted metal (>500m/min), there can be many PCs within the same camera plane, each looking at a portion of the web. The PCs communicate together via Ethernet, and essentially act as one machine. Low data rate applications may only have one PC per plane. There can be one or more cameras connected to each PC. Each camera plane is connected to the front end computer which acts as the co-ordinator and user front-end, again via Ethernet The Shelton webSPECTOR in its different forms has been successfully applied to applications such as lithographic sheet fibreglass veil, textile, and lace inspection. Since the functional requirements are essentially the same, it can be applied to most surface inspection applications such as non-wovens, rubber, aluminium, steel, plastic, rubber, laminated materials, composites and coated materials.