Hello,
First, Thank you for using National Instruments' Discussion forum. It is wonderful to see so many active users. I'm not really sure where to point you for the TCP/IP communication, but I can certainly help out in the Computer Vision realm!
If you will be using VB in your next application, you should still be able to use NI - IMAQ to control your image acquisition, and IMAQ Vision to perform image processing and analysis. I'm not sure what kind of hardware setup you have, but NI-IMAQ has an accompanying function reference that should tell you anything you may need to know on the calls used to perform image acquisition.
On the image analysis side of things, it is possible to purchase the Vision Development Module. This set of image processing and analysis functions can be used in both LabVIEW and text based programming environments. The package is a collection of ActiveX controls that you can use to develop image analysis and machine vision applications in any compatible ActiveX control container. I would certainly recommend it, as it makes developing a vision application significantly simpler.
Hope this helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
Robert
