For the third time the Italian Group on Pattern Recogni tion has organized an International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing (lAP) gathering together the most active groups working in this area in our country. The first International Conference lAP was held in Pavia (1980) and the second one in Selva di Fasano (1982). A selected set of distinguished speakers has been invited to talk about their personal experience and views on industrial applications (H Freeman), the critical analysis of medical image processing (D Rutovitz), the advances of robot vision languages (M Silva) and the availability of AI technology for imI?roving the performance of PR and IP programs (J M Chassery). Four different areas have been covered by the papers submitted and refereed) to the conference first and to a scientific committee next, namely IP Techniques, Multiprocessor Architectures, Robot Vision and IP Applications. A final paper giving the results of a census of the Italian groups is provided showing, with some detail, typical research lines as pursued in working groups both at the University and Industry. About 39 groups are presently active in 12 different places of the peninsula.