I need to process a raster file by scanning every point and radiating around it to find other points of interest. As you may know, a GIS raster file contains millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions of pixel points. I need a platform that will allow me to process this data efficiently. I am slightly familiar with vba but from what I see such image processing capabilities are beyond its scope.
You probably do not want to be starting by coding this from scratch; raster processing in GIS is almost as old as the hills. I suggest you look at something like QGIS as a starting point. If it or the many raster plugins don't do what you want it's time to start learning how to write your own; likely not in VBA.
You probably also want to discover the many helpful answers on gis.stackexchange.com