INGEN: a robot vision system for generic object recognition

Generic shape recognition is the problem of determining the pose and dimensions of objects for which only shape models are available and the object´s size is unknown. One application domain for generic object recognition is the handling and sorting of postal objects. Because metrical information relating object features to one another is not available, the more common feature-based approaches are inadequate. INGEN (inference engine for generic object recognition), uses a data-driven approach to determine the pose and size of objects with generic shapes such as parallelepipeds and cylinders. This system successfully recognizes occluded objects in heaps. It also handles scenes which have irregularities in surfaces and edges-such irregularities are common to postal objects-as well as shadows and irregularities in the range data itself