A new method is presented for efficient and reliable object recognition within n oisy, cluttered, and occluded range images. An image is captured and quantised into ce lls having characteristics. A tree data structure is provided wherein each node of the tree is associated with a cell. The tree is traversed according to the characteristics of each asso ciated cell using a best-first algorithm. When a leaf node is reached, potential object poses, typ es and locations associated with the leaf node are stored. Once sufficient information is stored, each potential recognised object is verified using a more reliable algorithm
METHOD OF RECOGNISING OBJECTS WITHIN TWO-DIMENSIONAL AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGES