This volume presents the articles accepted for the 8th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP'99), held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1{3 September 1999. The CAIP series of conferences started 14 years ago in Berlin. The series served initially as a forum for meetings between sci- tists from Western and Eastern-bloc countries. Political circumstances have changed dramatically since the inception of the conference and such contacts are fortunately no longer subject to abstrade. While CAIP conferences are still rooted in Central Europe, they now attract...