Systems and methods configured to generate virtual gimbal information for range images produced from 3D depth scans are described. In operation according to embodiments, known and advantageous spatial geometries of features of a scanned volume are exploited to generate virtual gimbal information for a pose. The virtual gimbal information of embodiments may be used to align a range image of the pose with one or more other range images for the scanned volume, such as for combining the range images for use in indoor mapping, gesture recognition, object scanning, etc. Implementations of range image registration using virtual gimbal information provide a realtime one shot direct pose estimator by detecting and estimating the normal vectors for surfaces of features between successive scans which effectively imparts a coordinate system for each scan with an orthogonal set of gimbal axes and defines the relative camera attitude.