Method to Extract Dominant Orientations Within a Scene From Depth Images and Point Clouds

In one embodiment, a method of identifying the dominant orientations of a scene comprises representing a scene as a plurality of directional vectors. The scene may comprise a three-dimensional representation of a scene, and the plurality of directional vectors may comprise a plurality of surface normals. The method further comprises determining, based on the plurality of directional vectors, a plurality of orientations describing the scene. The determined plurality of orientations explains the directionality of the plurality of directional vectors. In certain embodiments, the plurality of orientations may have independent axes of rotation. The plurality of orientations may be determined by representing the plurality of directional vectors as lying on a mathematical representation of a sphere and inferring the parameters of a statistical model to adapt the plurality of orientations to explain the positioning of the plurality of directional vectors lying on the mathematical representation of the sphere.