Mukherjee, Jayanta, Bhattacharya,S. , Chatterji,B.N. (1992):
and Das, P.P., A methodology for characterizing planar,
cylindrical and spherical surface patches in range images,
in Journal of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, 38(4), 219-225.  Abstract. 
In order to recognize the 3D objects in range images, the objects are first separated from the background. The next step involves segmentation of the complex boundary surfaces of objects into primitive surface patches. The primitive surface patches are to be characterized so that the object surface can be represented by a combination of surfaces of known types. We here present a method for characterizing a surface as either planar or cylindrical or spherical. Any surface which does not fall into catregory of the above surface types is represented by a combination of these primitive surface types.