Monocular Depth Estimation through Virtual-world Supervision and Real-world SfM Self-Supervision
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Abstract (arXiv)
Depth information is essential for on-board perception in autonomous driving and driver assistance. Monocular depth estimation (MDE) is very appealing since it allows for appearance and depth being on direct pixelwise correspondence without further calibration. Best MDE models are based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) trained in a supervised manner, i.e., assuming pixelwise ground truth (GT). Usually, this GT is acquired at training time through a calibrated multi-modal suite of sensors. However, also using only a monocular system at training time is cheaper and more scalable. This is possible by relying on structure-from-motion (SfM) principles to generate self-supervision. Nevertheless, problems of camouflaged objects, visibility changes, static-camera intervals, textureless areas, and scale ambiguity, diminish the usefulness of such self-supervision. In this paper, we perform monocular depth estimation by virtual-world supervision (MonoDEVS) and real-world SfM self-supervision. We compensate the SfM self-supervision limitations by leveraging virtual-world images with accurate semantic and depth supervision and addressing the virtual-to-real domain gap. Our MonoDEVSNet outperforms previous MDE CNNs trained on monocular and even stereo sequences.
Key facts. Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 48 of its 70 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Mar 2021.
Builds on
48 of 70 references.
References · 48
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Citing papers per year: 2021: 2; 2022: 6; 2023: 9; 2024: 4; 2025: 3.
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- 2023Towards Zero-Shot Scale-Aware Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 100
- 2022Multi-Frame Self-Supervised Depth with Transformerscited by 64
- 2023Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation: Let's Talk About The Weathercited by 33
- 2022Learning Optical Flow, Depth, and Scene Flow without Real-World Labelscited by 31
- 2021Unsupervised Monocular Depth Estimation in Highly Complex Environmentscited by 28
- 2023The Second Monocular Depth Estimation Challengecited by 12
- 2023SRFNet: Monocular Depth Estimation with Fine-grained Structure via Spatial Reliability-oriented Fusion of Frames and Eventscited by 11
- 2023Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation with Self-Reference Distillation and Disparity Offset Refinementcited by 10
- 2022Mind The Edge: Refining Depth Edges in Sparsely-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 8
- 2024Synthetic Data Generation Framework, Dataset, and Efficient Deep Model for Pedestrian Intention Predictioncited by 5
- 2024Improving Domain Generalization in Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation via Stabilized Adversarial Trainingcited by 4
- 2021Co-training for Deep Object Detection: Comparing Single-modal and Multi-modal Approachescited by 2
12 more
- 2022ROIFormer: Semantic-Aware Region of Interest Transformer for Efficient Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 2
- 2023DeepIPCv2: LiDAR-powered Robust Environmental Perception and Navigational Control for Autonomous Vehiclecited by 2
- 2023GenDepth: Generalizing Monocular Depth Estimation for Arbitrary Camera Parameters via Ground Plane Embeddingcited by 2
- 2023On the Metrics for Evaluating Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 1
- 2023Depth-Relative Self Attention for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 1
- 2024Virtually Enriched NYU Depth V2 Dataset for Monocular Depth Estimation: Do We Need Artificial Augmentation?cited by 1
- 2025An Online Adaptation Method for Robust Depth Estimation and Visual Odometry in the Open Worldcited by 1
- 2025UniCT Depth: Event-Image Fusion Based Monocular Depth Estimation with Convolution-Compensated ViT Dual SA Blockcited by 1
- 2025Guided Diffusion-based Generation of Adversarial Objects for Real-World Monocular Depth Estimation Attackscited by 1
- 2022Deep Camera Pose Regression Using Pseudo-LiDARcited by 0
- 2022Multilingual Communication System with Deaf Individuals Utilizing Natural and Visual Languagescited by 0
- 2024Back2Color: Domain-Adaptive Synthetic-to-Real Monocular Depth Estimation for Dynamic Traffic Scenescited by 0
- 2025Guided Diffusion-based Generation of Adversarial Objects for Real-World Monocular Depth Estimation Attacks30 Dec 2025
- 2025UniCT Depth: Event-Image Fusion Based Monocular Depth Estimation with Convolution-Compensated ViT Dual SA Block26 Jul 2025
- 2025An Online Adaptation Method for Robust Depth Estimation and Visual Odometry in the Open World16 Apr 2025
- 2024Improving Domain Generalization in Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation via Stabilized Adversarial Training4 Nov 2024
- 2024Back2Color: Domain-Adaptive Synthetic-to-Real Monocular Depth Estimation for Dynamic Traffic Scenes11 Jun 2024
- 2024Virtually Enriched NYU Depth V2 Dataset for Monocular Depth Estimation: Do We Need Artificial Augmentation?15 Apr 2024
- 2024Synthetic Data Generation Framework, Dataset, and Efficient Deep Model for Pedestrian Intention Prediction12 Jan 2024
- 2023GenDepth: Generalizing Monocular Depth Estimation for Arbitrary Camera Parameters via Ground Plane Embedding10 Dec 2023
- 2023SRFNet: Monocular Depth Estimation with Fine-grained Structure via Spatial Reliability-oriented Fusion of Frames and Events22 Sep 2023
- 2023Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation: Let's Talk About The Weather17 Jul 2023
- 2023DeepIPCv2: LiDAR-powered Robust Environmental Perception and Navigational Control for Autonomous Vehicle13 Jul 2023
- 2023Towards Zero-Shot Scale-Aware Monocular Depth Estimation29 Jun 2023
12 more
- 2023Depth-Relative Self Attention for Monocular Depth Estimation25 Apr 2023
- 2023The Second Monocular Depth Estimation Challenge14 Apr 2023
- 2023On the Metrics for Evaluating Monocular Depth Estimation20 Feb 2023
- 2023Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation with Self-Reference Distillation and Disparity Offset Refinement20 Feb 2023
- 2022ROIFormer: Semantic-Aware Region of Interest Transformer for Efficient Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation12 Dec 2022
- 2022Mind The Edge: Refining Depth Edges in Sparsely-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation10 Dec 2022
- 2022Multilingual Communication System with Deaf Individuals Utilizing Natural and Visual Languages1 Dec 2022
- 2022Multi-Frame Self-Supervised Depth with Transformers15 Apr 2022
- 2022Learning Optical Flow, Depth, and Scene Flow without Real-World Labels28 Mar 2022
- 2022Deep Camera Pose Regression Using Pseudo-LiDAR28 Feb 2022
- 2021Unsupervised Monocular Depth Estimation in Highly Complex Environments28 Jul 2021
- 2021Co-training for Deep Object Detection: Comparing Single-modal and Multi-modal Approaches23 Apr 2021
- 2023Towards Zero-Shot Scale-Aware Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 100
- 2022Multi-Frame Self-Supervised Depth with Transformerscited by 64
- 2023Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation: Let's Talk About The Weathercited by 33
- 2022Learning Optical Flow, Depth, and Scene Flow without Real-World Labelscited by 31
- 2021Unsupervised Monocular Depth Estimation in Highly Complex Environmentscited by 28
- 2023The Second Monocular Depth Estimation Challengecited by 12
- 2023SRFNet: Monocular Depth Estimation with Fine-grained Structure via Spatial Reliability-oriented Fusion of Frames and Eventscited by 11
- 2023Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation with Self-Reference Distillation and Disparity Offset Refinementcited by 10
- 2022Mind The Edge: Refining Depth Edges in Sparsely-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 8
- 2024Synthetic Data Generation Framework, Dataset, and Efficient Deep Model for Pedestrian Intention Predictioncited by 5
- 2024Improving Domain Generalization in Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation via Stabilized Adversarial Trainingcited by 4
- 2021Co-training for Deep Object Detection: Comparing Single-modal and Multi-modal Approachescited by 2
12 most cited of 22 All 22 (JSON)
- 2025UniCT Depth: Event-Image Fusion Based Monocular Depth Estimation with Convolution-Compensated ViT Dual SA Block26 Jul 2025
- 2025An Online Adaptation Method for Robust Depth Estimation and Visual Odometry in the Open World16 Apr 2025
- 2024Improving Domain Generalization in Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation via Stabilized Adversarial Training4 Nov 2024
- 2024Back2Color: Domain-Adaptive Synthetic-to-Real Monocular Depth Estimation for Dynamic Traffic Scenes11 Jun 2024
- 2024Virtually Enriched NYU Depth V2 Dataset for Monocular Depth Estimation: Do We Need Artificial Augmentation?15 Apr 2024
- 2024Synthetic Data Generation Framework, Dataset, and Efficient Deep Model for Pedestrian Intention Prediction12 Jan 2024
- 2023GenDepth: Generalizing Monocular Depth Estimation for Arbitrary Camera Parameters via Ground Plane Embedding10 Dec 2023
- 2023SRFNet: Monocular Depth Estimation with Fine-grained Structure via Spatial Reliability-oriented Fusion of Frames and Events22 Sep 2023
- 2023Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation: Let's Talk About The Weather17 Jul 2023
- 2023Towards Zero-Shot Scale-Aware Monocular Depth Estimation29 Jun 2023
- 2023Depth-Relative Self Attention for Monocular Depth Estimation25 Apr 2023
- 2023The Second Monocular Depth Estimation Challenge14 Apr 2023
12 newest of 22 All 22 (JSON)