Free Library to use the Web Cam and to do Computer Vision

[readysetgo]

Hi all,

I am interested in writing a c++ program that will utilize my web cam. How would I do this? What library should I use to communicate to the web cam device? It is USB powered and it is a logitech camera. I'd like to be able to for example, capture picture frames and do pixel processing on them.

In the long run, I'd like to use some kind of computer vision library to be able to detect objects in real time (facial recognition, shape recognition, color recognition, pattern recognition, etc). Are there any computer vision libraries you recommend?

Thanks

[helios]

OpenCV