1. A method for feature extraction of surface manifolds, said method comprising: locating an optical remote sensor that measures a distance to and/or other properties of a target by illuminating said target with light, wherein said optical remote sensor provides sensor data indicative of at least one surface manifold; generating point data with respect to said at least one surface manifold; and performing an Anti-Hebbian and Hebbian (AHAH)-based feature extraction operation on said point data for compression and processing thereof.