A method of compiling an image database for a three-dimensional object recognition including the steps of: when a plurality of images each showing an object from different viewpoint are inputted, extracting local features from each of the images, and expressing the local features using feature vectors; forming sets of the feature vectors, each set representing a same part of the object from a series of the viewpoints, and generating subspaces, each subspace representing a characteristic of each set; and storing each subspace to the image database with an identifier of the object to perform a recognition process that is realized by the steps of: when at least one image of an object is given as a query, extracting query feature vectors; determining the subspace most similar to each query feature vector; and executing a counting process to the identifiers to retrieve an object most similar to the query.