If you ever want to help in .NET, I would advice
never say: "code must be in Visual Basic". Most likely, the code will be in C#, sometimes in C++/CLI, especially in such serious areas as image recognition. You cannot expect that a lot of serious stuff is written in VB.NET. Microsoft does not take VB seriously, it's always been well behind C#. You cannot do any serious .NET development if you do not understand at least some of C#.
You don't require VB.NET as there are not language barriers in .NET; you can use C# projects in all your VB.NET projects.
In other cases, you will need to use C++ (or other native unmanaged libraries) and use it in your .NET projects using P/Invoke.
Now, you need to look in the following Open Source libraries:
AForge.NET,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AForge.NET[
^],
http://www.aforgenet.com/[
^];
OpenCV,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCV[
^],
http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/[
^];
VXL,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VXL[
^],
http://vxl.sourceforge.net/[
^],
http://www.vxletech.com/[
^].
Good luck,
—SA