This paper presents a segmentation technique to decompose automatically a panoramic range image into a set of planar projections. It consists of three stages. Firstly, two orthogonal surface orientation histograms are generated. Secondly, from these histograms the major surfaces' orientations are extracted. Finally, a histogram of distances is computed for each one of these orientations; it will be used to define the position of the projection planes as well as the corresponding clipping planes. The original panoramic range image is divided into as many planar projections as main directions in the orientation histograms are extracted. This technique can be used with both indoor and outdoor scenes. Experimental result with a panoramic range image is presented.