1. A positioning system including a database that associates, with visually identifiable unique objects in a working environment, position coordinates within an associated coordinate system; one or more cameras of known internal characteristics and unknown positions, movements, or both within the environment, the one or more cameras taking one or more images of the environment from respective positions; a processing subsystem for identifying unique objects within one or more of the images taken by a given camera, entering the database to extract position coordinates associated with the identified unique objects that match entries in the database, and determining the position and the orientation of the given camera in the environment based on the retrieved position coordinates for at least three identified unique objects; and updating the database to include one or both of information relating to newly identified unique objects in the one or more images taken by the respective cameras, the information including the position coordinates for the newly identified objects as determined from the images taken by the cameras and more precise position coordinates for previously identified objects.