Computer Vision - ECCV 2004 : Springer : 9783540219842 : 3540219846 : 28 Apr 2004 : Welcome to the proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Computer - sion! Following a very successful ECCV 2002, the response to our call for papers was almost equally strong ? 555 papers were submitted. We accepted 41 papers for oral and 149 papers for poster presentation. Several innovations were introduced into the review process. First, the n- ber of program committee members was increased to reduce their review load. We managed to assign to program committee members no more than 12 papers. Second, we adopted a paper ranking system. Program committee members were asked to rank all the papers assigned to them, even those that were reviewed by additional reviewers. Third, we allowed authors to respond to the reviews consolidated in a discussion involving the area chair and the reviewers. Fourth, thereports,thereviews,andtheresponsesweremadeavailabletotheauthorsas well as to the program committee m