I have read this book...
http://simplecv.org/ . It is pretty good. I have in past season's used OpenCV 2.0 using C++ ( VS 2010 on windows 7 on a i3 core) and I have used SimpleCV on an Odriod-u2 (just bought the U3). I learned allot more about vision processing itself while using just OpenCV. Lots of tutorials and books. The main reason I learned more was because SimpleCV does allot of the work for you and it is a higher abstraction that is built on OpenCV. Like many abstractions they leak so it is good to know what is underneath.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...tractions.html
We use SimpleCV because I know OpenCV (master beginner) and that makes me more productive. I am glad I started with OpenCV to learn simple vision processing but it is a steeper learning curve.
There is this and it is not cheap (though I did get Mathworks to get me a node locked copy for student use for our FIRST team of Matlab with all of the packages).
http://www.petercorke.com/Machine_Vision_Toolbox.html
I also have access through work. It is not the cheapest way to learn vision but it is a common way in college and it can show you some advanced material and concepts.
I have looked at the code that comes with 2014. It is pretty much what we did as far as an algorithm last year to get distance in SimpleCV.