Determination of three-dimensional object location and orientation from range images

A technique for determining the distortion parameters (location and orientation) of general three-dimensional objects from a single range image view is introduced. The technique is based on an extension of the straight-line Hough transform to three-dimensional space. It is very efficient and robust, since the dimensionality of the feature space is low and since it uses range images directly (with no preprocessing such as segmentation and edge or gradient detection). Because the feature space separates the translation and rotation effects, a hierarchical algorithm to detect object rotation and translation is possible. The new Hough space can also be used as a feature space for discriminating among three-dimensional objects