There is a strong need for advances in the fields of image indexing and retrieval and visual query languages for multimedia databases. Image technology is facing both classical and novel problems for the organization and filtering of increasingly large amounts of pictorial data. Novel kinds of problems, such as indexing and high-level content-base, accessing to image databases, human interaction with multimedia systems, approaches to multimedia data, biometrics, data mining, computer graphics and augmented reality, have grown into real-life issues. The papers in this proceedings volume relate...

The international conference series on Visual Information Systems (VISUAL) originatesfromtheideathattheexchangeofviews, resultsandexperienceswould allowresearchersandpractitionersworkingin the areaofvisualinformations- tems to address commonproblems moree?ectively. Following the success of p- vious editions held in Melbourne (1996), San Diego (1997), Amsterdam (1999), Lyon (2000), Taiwan (2002), Miami (2003), San Francisco (2004), Amsterdam (2005), and Shanghai (2007), the aim of the 2008 edition of the International ConferenceonVisualInformationSystemswasto providea fruitful forumofd-...