Patent ID: 7706603

Claim:
A method for real-time pose estimation of an object in a sample view, the method comprising the steps of: selecting, in an off-line environment, a set of stable feature regions of the object; incorporating, in an off-line environment, multiple view descriptors of a view set for each selected feature region into a statistical model; in a computer, constraining a search area of the statistical model using geometric consistencies between the statistical model and the sample view; and in a computer, searching the constrained search area to match regions in the statistical model with regions in the sample view; wherein the step of constraining a search area of the statistical model using geometric consistencies between the statistical model and the sample view, further comprises matching said stable feature regions with classes of regions visible from viewpoints; further wherein said matching is an iterative process wherein a next candidate region is chosen based on visibility from a viewpoint; and further wherein an Nth candidate match f k ′⇄C k ′,1<k≦N is selected in a deterministic manner: ( f k ′ , C k ′ ) = arg ⁢ ⁢ max f k ∈ F ⁢ \ ⁢ { f 1 , … ⁢ , f k - 1 } C k ∈ ⋂ t = 1 k - 1 ⁢ Vc l ′ ⁢ P ⁡ ( C k ❘ f k ) wherein f is a 2D feature, C is a class representing a view set, and V c 1 is a set of all classes from where C 1 is visible.