A system and method for identifying and locating instances of a shape under large variations in linear degrees of freedom is provided. The invention extracts boundary segments from an image and generates potential match candidates for boundary models based on the extracted boundary segments. The invention also extracts skeletal segments from the obtained image. Potential match candidates are then generated for skeletal models based on the extracted skeletal segments. Once the match candidates for the boundary models and skeletal models have been generated, the present invention then corresponds the various boundary segments and outputs a best correspondence. The output from the present invention may be utilized by a user to signify acceptance of the various correspondences located by the present invention. These correspondences may then be utilized to train a machine vision system.