Abstract: This paper presented an approach to recognizing geometric features from freeform surface models of sheet metal parts. It consists of three steps: region segmentation of surfaces, domain independent protrusion/depression detection and recognition of geometric features for sheet metal forming domain. The input geometry data is based on an IGES CAD model and the surface can be represented by trimmed NURBS surfaces. Symbolic computation is used to analyze surface curvature and segment them into curvature regions (CRs). Then sets of connected CRs with particular geometry and topology which have highlevel engineering meanings are recognized as features by a rulebased approach. Two case studies are presented to verify the feasibility of the developed method.