Recognition and tracking of 3D objects

This paper describes a method for recognizing and tracking 3D objects in a single camera image and for determining their 3D poses. A model is trained solely based on the geometry information of a 3D CAD model of the object. We do not rely on texture or reflectance information of the object's surface, making this approach useful for a wide range of object types and complementary to descriptor-based approaches. An exhaustive search, which ensures that the globally best matches are always found, is combined with an efficient hierarchical search, a high percentage of which can be computed offline, making our method suitable even for time-critical applications. The method is especially suited for, but not limited to, the recognition and tracking of untextured objects like metal parts, which are often used in industrial environments.