1. A computer implemented method comprising: acquiring a three-dimensional (3D) range image containing one or more 3D landmarks; rendering the 3D range image into a rendered visible image containing intensity patterns related to the one or more 3D landmarks, wherein rendering the 3D range image includes generating a two-dimensional synthetic image from a scene file, and wherein the scene file includes objects in a defined language as a description of a virtual scene; and localizing at least one of the one or more 3D landmarks in the rendered visible image to provide at least one localized 3D landmark, wherein the at least one localized 3D landmark is compared with at least one 3D landmark in a reference 3D image to provide a general identification or a biometric identification.