1. A computer based method for estimating a pose of a human actor, the method comprising: receiving a depth image of the human actor; detecting a head, neck, and trunk (H-N-T) template of the human actor based on the depth image; generating a skeleton image of the human actor; detecting a plurality of end points of the skeleton image; determining whether self occlusion is present in the depth image, the determining comprising: determining whether four of the detected end points correspond to hands and feet of the human actor; determining whether lengths of skeletonized branches between the detected end points corresponding to the hands and feet of the human actor and corresponding entry points of the H-N-T template exceed a minimum distance; determining that self occlusion is not present if (1) four of the detected end points correspond to the hands and feet of the human actor, and (2) the lengths of the skeletonized branches exceed the minimum distance; and determining that self occlusion is present if (1) no more than three of the detected end points correspond to the hands and feet of the human actor, or (2) the length of at least one of the skeletonized branches does not exceed the minimum distance; responsive to self occlusion being determined present in the depth image, detecting a plurality of limb regions in the depth image, calculating a probability for each pixel of each detected limb region for a likelihood of the pixel belonging to a particular limb in the depth image, and assigning a label for each limb region based on the calculated probabilities of its pixels; detecting a plurality of features of the human actor based on the H-N-T and template the labels assigned to the limb regions; and estimating a pose of the human actor in a human model based on the features and kinematic constraints of the human model.