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Income Taxes - Additional Information (Detail) (USD $)
3 Months Ended
Mar. 28, 2015
Mar. 29, 2014
Income Taxes [Line Items]    
INCOME TAX (BENEFIT) EXPENSE $ (96,000)us-gaap_IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit $ 1,841,000us-gaap_IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit
Income tax expense increase (decrease) (1,900,000)faro_IncomeTaxExpensePeriodIncreaseDecrease  
Discrete tax benefit due to the reversal of a valuation allowance $ 200,000us-gaap_IncomeTaxReconciliationChangeInDeferredTaxAssetsValuationAllowance  
Effective tax rate (16.90%)us-gaap_EffectiveIncomeTaxRateContinuingOperations 27.00%us-gaap_EffectiveIncomeTaxRateContinuingOperations