A method for rigid registration of ear impression models, including: extracting a canal region from an undetailed ear impression model, the undetailed ear impression model representing an undetailed surface of an ear canal and outer ear geometry; extracting a canal region from a detailed ear impression model, the detailed ear impression model representing a detailed surface of the ear canal; generating an orientation histogram for the canal region of the undetailed ear impression model and an orientation histogram for the canal region of the detailed ear impression model; performing a rotational alignment between the orientation histograms; computing a translational shift between the canal regions after performing the rotational alignment; and performing a registration between the undetailed and detailed ear impression models after computing the translational shift.