  Finding the three-dimensional representation of all or a part of a scene from
a single two dimensional image is a challenging task. In this paper we propose
a method for identifying the pose and location of objects with circular
protrusions in three dimensions from a single image and a 3d representation or
model of the object of interest. To do this, we present a method for
identifying ellipses and their properties quickly and reliably with a novel
technique that exploits intensity differences between objects and a geometric
technique for matching an ellipse in 2d to a circle in 3d.
  We apply these techniques to the specific problem of determining the pose and
location of vehicles, particularly cars, from a single image. We have achieved
excellent pose recovery performance on artificially generated car images and
show promising results on real vehicle images. We also make use of the ellipse
detection method to identify car wheels from images, with a very high
successful match rate.
