The present invention discloses a three dimensional human pose recognition method and apparatus, where the three dimensional human pose recognition method includes steps of: a three dimensional pose initial recognition step of performing three dimensional pose recognition on an input image containing a human image to obtain image-based three dimensional human pose information; a sensor information acquisition step of acquiring, by a motion sensor, motion information of human articulation points; and a three dimensional pose correction step of correcting, with the motion information acquired by the sensor information acquisition step, the image-based three dimensional human pose information recognized by the three dimensional pose initial recognition step. According to the technical solution of the invention, it is possible to improve accuracy of the three dimensional human pose recognition efficiently. Further, the present invention also discloses a three dimensional human pose recognition method and apparatus, in which three dimensional half-body pose recognition is proposed, thereby speed of three dimensional human pose recognition can be improved significantly while improving accuracy of three dimensional human pose recognition.