A robotic system (10; 110), comprising: a robot (12; 112) having an associated workspace; a vision sensor (11; 111) constructed to obtain a 3D image of a robot scene including a workpiece (14; 114) located in the workspace; and a control system communicatively coupled to the vision sensor (11; 111) and to the robot (12; 112), wherein the image of the robot scene includes robot scene image data, the robotic system (10, 110) being characterized in that: the control system is configured to execute program instructions to filter the image by segmenting the image into a first image portion containing substantially only a region of interest within the robot scene, and a second image portion containing the balance of the robot scene outside the region of interest; and by storing image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is operative to control movement of the robot (12; 112) to perform work on the workpiece (14; 114) based on the image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is configured execute program instructions to transform the robot scene image data to a robot coordinate system, and in that the control system is configured to execute the program instructions to segment the image after transforming the robot scene image data to the robot coordinate system. a robot (12; 112) having an associated workspace; a vision sensor (11; 111) constructed to obtain a 3D image of a robot scene including a workpiece (14; 114) located in the workspace; and a control system communicatively coupled to the vision sensor (11; 111) and to the robot (12; 112), wherein the image of the robot scene includes robot scene image data, the robotic system (10, 110) being characterized in that: the control system is configured to execute program instructions to filter the image by segmenting the image into a first image portion containing substantially only a region of interest within the robot scene, and a second image portion containing the balance of the robot scene outside the region of interest; and by storing image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is operative to control movement of the robot (12; 112) to perform work on the workpiece (14; 114) based on the image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is configured execute program instructions to transform the robot scene image data to a robot coordinate system, and in that the control system is configured to execute the program instructions to segment the image after transforming the robot scene image data to the robot coordinate system. the control system is configured to execute program instructions to filter the image by segmenting the image into a first image portion containing substantially only a region of interest within the robot scene, and a second image portion containing the balance of the robot scene outside the region of interest; and by storing image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is operative to control movement of the robot (12; 112) to perform work on the workpiece (14; 114) based on the image data associated with the first image portion, in that the control system is configured execute program instructions to transform the robot scene image data to a robot coordinate system, and in that the control system is configured to execute the program instructions to segment the image after transforming the robot scene image data to the robot coordinate system.