Various embodiments of the invention are implemented for an entry level, compact and lightweight single package apparatus combining a conventional high-resolution two-dimensional (2D) camera with a low-resolution three-dimensional (3D) depth image camera, capable to learn, through depth information, how to improve the performance of a set of 2D identification and machine vision algorithms in terms of speed-up (e.g. through regions of interests (ROIs)) and raw discriminative power. The cameras simultaneously capture images that are processed by an Intelligent Segmentation Engine in the system to facilitate object recognition.