In this paper vector code correlation(VCC) method and an algorithm to promote the image processing performance in building an effective measurement system using cameras are described for automatically berthing and controlling the ship equipped with side thrusters. In order to realize automatic ship berthing, it is indispensable that the berthing assistant system on the ship should continuously trace a target in the berth to measure the distance to the target and the ship attitude, such that we can make the ship move to the specified location. The considered system is made up of 4 apparatuses compounded from a CCD camera, a camera direction controller, a popular PC with a built in image processing board and a signal conversion unit connected to parallel port of the PC. The object of this paper is to reduce the image processing time so that the berthing system is able to ensure the safety schedule against risks during approaching to the berth. It could be achieved by composing the vector code image to utilize the gradient of an approximated plane found with the brightness of pixels forming a certain region in an image and verifying the effectiveness on a commonly used PC. From experimental results, it is clear that the proposed method can be applied to the measurement system for automatic ship berthing and has the image processing time of fourfold as compared with the typical template matching method.