Three dimensional object pose estimation which employs dense depth information

A method for estimating the pose of an object, comprising the steps of:

• obtaining dense range data which describes the distance of points on the object from a reference;
• shifting a focus of expansion of a point on the object independently by an integer value;
• and
• processing said dense range data in accordance with a set of linear depth constraints to estimate the pose of the object.

A method for estimating the pose of an object appearing in a sequence of video images, comprising the steps of:

• obtaining dense brightness data for pixels in each of said video images;
• obtaining dense range data for pixels in each of said video images;
• determining an initial pose for the object in one of said video images;
• and
• estimating changes in at least one of the translational position and rotational orientation of the object for successive images, on the basis of said brightness data and said range data, shifting a focus of expansion of a point on the object independently by an integer to thereby estimate the pose of the object in successive images.