The automatic recognition of molding features (protrusions, depressions, and their intersections), core, and cavity surfaces plays an important role in shortening the lead time in mold design and manufacturing as well as aiding the side core design. Consequently, in this paper, an automatic mold feature recognition system to recognize protrusion, depression as well as intersecting depression features is proposed and implemented. The recognition of various types of intersecting features is a significant contribution to the literature. The output generated by the accessibility analysis (without discretizing the part) is used as the input to the feature recognition module. The newly developed system is assessed by comparing its results with those of earlier systems. A comprehensive case study is presented that can demonstrate the additional capabilities of the proposed system to those of the present in the published literature. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010.