Croeso i BMVC2002! We would like to welcome you to the first BMVC in its thirteen year history to be held in Wales. It is an exciting time to be involved in computer vision as the area is larger and more active than ever. BMVC is one of the most frequently cited national conferences and attracts a large international presence. This year more than 30% of the final programme is from overseas. This has been reflected in the record number of submissions received for BMVC: 185 in total. Consequently we had to expand the reviewing committee to cope with the demand. Each paper was reviewed by at least three reviewers, each of whom read at least 18 papers to ensure that they saw a broad sample. This is an extremely time consuming process and we are grateful to the reviewers for all their work. At the review meeting 37 papers were accepted for oral presentation and 43 were accepted for presentation as posters.

The quality of regular papers at this conference is as usual very high. In addition, we are pleased to have invited talks from Prof. Yiannis Aloimonos (University of Maryland), Prof. Vaclav Hlavac (Czech Technical University), and Dr. Andrew Stoddart (2d3). The latter talk is an addition to the usual BMVC programme which reflects our attempt to give industrial applications in computer vision a higher profile at the conference. On the industrial day we are also holding exhibits and this year we have an expanded demo programme. To encourage the transfer of technology from academia to product we are pleased to announce a new prize sponsored by the Imaging Faraday Partnership, and we are most grateful for their support. This is in addition to the regular prizes: Best Scientific Paper sponsored by BMVA, Best Industrial Paper sponsored by CRS Ltd., Best Model Based Vision paper sponsored by Image-Metrics PLC, and Best Demo sponsored by BMVC2002.

Many people have helped in preparing and organising the conference. We would like to thank Dr. Manuel Trucco (Heriot Watt University) for running the tutorial, Dr. Mike Rogers and Prof. Chris Taylor (University of Manchester) for providing and tireless support of the online conference management system, Mrs. Tracey Lavis, Mrs. Sarah Bollingham, and Mrs. Margaret Evans (Cardiff University) for local arrangements, previous BMVC chairmen for answers our many questions, Mr. Jon Bessant and Mr. Mike Donovan (Stephens & George Print Group) for help in preparing the printed proceedings, and Florence, Dougal, Brian and Zeb for continual inspiration.

We hope that you enjoy the conference and find it an inspiring and productive one. There will be many opportunities for learning new ideas and meeting new people, and we have provided the BMVC ``umbrella of opportunity'' (in the conference pack) to bring you good luck.

Pob Hwyl.

Paul L. Rosin and David Marshall
Cardiff, July 2002

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