A design for a system to perform rapid recognition of three dimensional objects is presented, focusing on efficient indexing. In order to retrieve the best matched models without exploring all possible object matches, we have employed a bayesian framework. A decision-theoretic measure of the discriminatory power of a feature for a model object is defined in terms of posterior probability. Detectability of a featrue defined as a function of the feature itselt, viewpoint, sensor charcteristics, nd the feature detection algorithm(s) is also considered in the computation of discribminatory power. In order to speed up the indexing or selection of correct objects, we generate and verify the object hypotheses for rfeatures detected in a scene in the order of the discriminatory power of these features for model objects.