# Deep Depth Completion from Extremely Sparse Data: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.05335 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.05335/

## Key facts

- Cited by 33 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 90 of its 154 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 May 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 90)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [MobileNetV2: Inverted Residuals and Linear Bottlenecks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04381/) (2018)
- [Going Deeper with Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.4842/) (2014)
- [What Uncertainties Do We Need in Bayesian Deep Learning for Computer Vision?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04977/) (2017)
- [Dynamic Graph CNN for Learning on Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.07829/) (2018)
- [Semantic Image Synthesis with Spatially-Adaptive Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07291/) (2019)
- [Learning Transferable Architectures for Scalable Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.07012/) (2017)
- [Segmenter: Transformer for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05633/) (2021)
- [Unsupervised Monocular Depth Estimation with Left-Right Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.03677/) (2016)
- [Deep Ordinal Regression Network for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02446/) (2018)
- [Deformable ConvNets v2: More Deformable, Better Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11168/) (2018)
- [AdaBins: Depth Estimation using Adaptive Bins](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.14141/) (2020)
- [UNet++: Redesigning Skip Connections to Exploit Multiscale Features in Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05074/) (2019)
- [Conditional Neural Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.01613/) (2018)
- [Deeper Depth Prediction with Fully Convolutional Residual Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.00373/) (2016)
- [Dynamic Convolution: Attention over Convolution Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.03458/) (2019)
- [Virtual Worlds as Proxy for Multi-Object Tracking Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.06457/) (2016)
- [Sparsity Invariant CNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.06500/) (2017)
- [Enforcing geometric constraints of virtual normal for depth prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.12209/) (2019)
- [Non-Local Spatial Propagation Network for Depth Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.10042/) (2020)
- [Sparse-to-Dense: Depth Prediction from Sparse Depth Samples and a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.07492/) (2017)
- [Deep Parametric Continuous Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.06742/) (2021)
- [SPLATNet: Sparse Lattice Networks for Point Cloud Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.08275/) (2018)
- [PENet: Towards Precise and Efficient Image Guided Depth Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00783/) (2021)
- [Revisiting Single Image Depth Estimation: Toward Higher Resolution Maps with Accurate Object Boundaries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08673/) (2018)
- [Self-supervised Sparse-to-Dense: Self-supervised Depth Completion from LiDAR and Monocular Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.00275/) (2018)
- [Learning Depth with Convolutional Spatial Propagation Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.02695/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Explicit Attention-Enhanced Fusion for RGB-Thermal Perception Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15710/) (2023)
- [HoloDreamer: Holistic 3D Panoramic World Generation from Text Descriptions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15187/) (2024)
- [Revisiting Depth Completion from a Stereo Matching Perspective for Cross-domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09254/) (2023)
- [Distilling Monocular Foundation Model for Fine-grained Depth Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16970/) (2025)
- [Learnable Differencing Center for Nighttime Depth Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14538/) (2023)
- [HGS-Mapping: Online Dense Mapping Using Hybrid Gaussian Representation in Urban Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20159/) (2024)
- [Video Frame Interpolation with Stereo Event and Intensity Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08228/) (2023)
- [EVI-SAM: Robust, Real-time, Tightly-coupled Event-Visual-Inertial State Estimation and 3D Dense Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11911/) (2023)
- [Metrically Scaled Monocular Depth Estimation through Sparse Priors for Underwater Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16750/) (2023)
- [SparseDC: Depth Completion from sparse and non-uniform inputs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00097/) (2023)
- [RGB Guided ToF Imaging System: A Survey of Deep Learning-based Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10357/) (2024)
- [Scale Propagation Network for Generalizable Depth Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18408/) (2024)
- [Dense Depth Distillation with Out-of-Distribution Simulated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12464/) (2022)
- [CFPNet: Improving Lightweight ToF Depth Completion via Cross-zone Feature Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04480/) (2024)
- [Lifelong-MonoDepth: Lifelong Learning for Multi-Domain Monocular Metric Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05050/) (2023)
- [Depth on Demand: Streaming Dense Depth from a Low Frame Rate Active Sensor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08277/) (2024)
- [TourPhysics: Bringing Physics to World Models for Exploration and Manipulation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04911/) (2026)
- [A Concise but High-performing Network for Image Guided Depth Completion in Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15902/) (2024)
- [VIRUS-NeRF -- Vision, InfraRed and UltraSonic based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09477/) (2024)
- [A Two-Stage Masked Autoencoder Based Network for Indoor Depth Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09792/) (2024)
- [REOcc: Camera-Radar Fusion with Radar Feature Enrichment for 3D Occupancy Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.06666/) (2025)
- [NavTrust: Benchmarking Trustworthiness for Embodied Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19229/) (2026)
- [Decoupling Ego-Motion from Target Dynamics via Dual-Interval Motion Cues for UAV Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22605/) (2026)
- [DAWN: Noise-Robust Quadruped Parkour via Depth-Denoising World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29092/) (2026)
- [Sparse Depth-Guided Attention for Accurate Depth Completion: A Stereo-Assisted Monitored Distillation Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15840/) (2023)
- [WHU-Synthetic: A Synthetic Perception Dataset for 3-D Multitask Model Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19059/) (2024)
- [Real-World Depth Recovery via Structure Uncertainty Modeling and Inaccurate GT Depth Fitting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.11820/) (2025)
- [Skeleton-based Robust Registration Framework for Corrupted 3D Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24273/) (2025)
- [Geometry-Aware Sparse Depth Sampling for High-Fidelity RGB-D Depth Completion in Robotic Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08229/) (2025)
- [Real-Time LiDAR Point Cloud Densification for Low-Latency Spatial Data Transmission](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01210/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Depth completion aims at predicting dense pixel-wise depth from an extremely sparse map captured from a depth sensor, e.g., LiDARs. It plays an essential role in various applications such as autonomous driving, 3D reconstruction, augmented reality, and robot navigation. Recent successes on the task have been demonstrated and dominated by deep learning based solutions. In this article, for the first time, we provide a comprehensive literature review that helps readers better grasp the research trends and clearly understand the current advances. We investigate the related studies from the design aspects of network architectures, loss functions, benchmark datasets, and learning strategies with a proposal of a novel taxonomy that categorizes existing methods. Besides, we present a quantitative comparison of model performance on three widely used benchmarks, including indoor and outdoor datasets. Finally, we discuss the challenges of prior works and provide readers with some insights for future research directions.