Abstract: In this paper the architecture and software design of 2D computer vision system are introduced.The hardware of this system consists of microcomputer IBM PC/XT,real-time image input board and camera.The software consists of chain code-basedvision system and traveling-code-based vision system.These systems can operate in-dependently.The 2D computer vision systems can input image in real time,represent eachelement by 1 or 0 code,extract characteristic,recognize object,define coordinate and orientation.And these parameters are transmitted to robot in real time.The joint work of the 2D vision system and the Gold-Key educational robot is also discussed.