Before learning LabVIEW Machine Vision, you should be proficient in LabVIEW (including DAQmx, to get some idea about how LabVIEW interacts with hardware to get data to process). In my experience, LabVIEW Vision is one of the most difficult data acquisition and processing areas, as Images are essentially 4-dimensional structures (two dimensions of space, one of color/intensity, and potentially one of time). The way the software interacts with the "data acquisition device" (some call it "the camera") is also "unusual". It really helps to have a mentor/colleague to work through the tricky concepts together.
To do a project that involves LabVIEW Vision, you "standard LabVIEW" (LabVIEW, DAQmx, VISA), the Vision Development Module, and the Vision Acquisition Software (I might not have the names quite the way NIPM lists them, but the VDM is in the Toolkits and Modules on the first page of NIPM and VAS is under "Drivers". Be sure you get IMAQdx, if it specifies it by Driver name).
I hope this is not a "last-year" Project for you -- you'll need at least a year of hard work (find a colleague/mentor/partner, if possible!) to get images and be able to "do something useful" with them.
Bob Schor
