The 13th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition (CIARP 2008, C- greso IberoAmericano de Reconocimiento de Patrones) was the 13th event in a seriesofpioneercongressesonpatternrecognitioninthecommunityofIberoam- icancountries. As was the case for previous conferences, CIARP 2008 attracted participants from around the world with the aim of promoting and disseminating ongoing researchon mathematical methods and computing techniques for pattern rec- nition, computer vision, image analysis, and speech recognition, as well as their application in such diverse areas as robotics, industry,...