Abstract: Parts to be treated in a powder spray coating system are identified by moving the parts relative to an array of sensors. A plurality of sensor readings is created by sensing the presence or absence of a portion of one of the parts proximate to each of the sensors for a plurality of incremental distances that the parts have moved relative to the sensors. The sensor readings are compressed according to a computational procedure to generate compressed data for each of the parts, the compressed data representing the sensor readings for all of the sensors during each incremental distance, and the compressed data representing the sensor readings for all of the incremental distances of each of the sensors. The compressed data is compared with corresponding data for an identified part to determine if the part matches the identified part. The system provides for more detailed parts identification than light curtains, but avoids the expense and memory requirements of sophisticated vision systems.