mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

DiffusionDepth: Diffusion Denoising Approach for Monocular Depth Estimation

arXiv 2303.05021 ↗First posted 9 Mar 2023cs.CVcited by 82

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Cited by 43 in Diffusion models, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

Monocular depth estimation is a challenging task that predicts the pixel-wise depth from a single 2D image. Current methods typically model this problem as a regression or classification task. We propose DiffusionDepth, a new approach that reformulates monocular depth estimation as a denoising diffusion process. It learns an iterative denoising process to `denoise' random depth distribution into a depth map with the guidance of monocular visual conditions. The process is performed in the latent space encoded by a dedicated depth encoder and decoder. Instead of diffusing ground truth (GT) depth, the model learns to reverse the process of diffusing the refined depth of itself into random depth distribution. This self-diffusion formulation overcomes the difficulty of applying generative models to sparse GT depth scenarios. The proposed approach benefits this task by refining depth estimation step by step, which is superior for generating accurate and highly detailed depth maps. Experimental results on KITTI and NYU-Depth-V2 datasets suggest that a simple yet efficient diffusion approach could reach state-of-the-art performance in both indoor and outdoor scenarios with acceptable inference time.

Key facts. Cited by 82 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 51 of its 59 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Mar 2023.

Builds on

51 of 59 references.

References · 51

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
  2. 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 52,096
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  5. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
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  7. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
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  9. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,781
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  11. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
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38 more
  1. 2019EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networkscited by 6,442
  2. 2016Feature Pyramid Networks for Object Detectioncited by 5,036
  3. 2015You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detectioncited by 4,852
  4. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,101
  5. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,761
  6. 2021Vision Transformers for Dense Predictioncited by 1,803
  7. 2014Depth Map Prediction from a Single Image using a Multi-Scale Deep Networkcited by 1,274
  8. 2021Tokens-to-Token ViT: Training Vision Transformers from Scratch on ImageNetcited by 1,101
  9. 2020Improved Techniques for Training Score-Based Generative Modelscited by 1,043
  10. 2018Deep Ordinal Regression Network for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 723
  11. 2022Equivariant Diffusion for Molecule Generation in 3Dcited by 677
  12. 2020AdaBins: Depth Estimation using Adaptive Binscited by 601
  13. 2021Label-Efficient Semantic Segmentation with Diffusion Modelscited by 499
  14. 2014Predicting Depth, Surface Normals and Semantic Labels with a Common Multi-Scale Convolutional Architecturecited by 483
  15. 2019From Big to Small: Multi-Scale Local Planar Guidance for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 382
  16. 2022DiffusionDet: Diffusion Model for Object Detectioncited by 354
  17. 2021SegDiff: Image Segmentation with Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 280
  18. 2022Diffusion probabilistic modeling of protein backbones in 3D for the motif-scaffolding problemcited by 236
  19. 2019Enforcing geometric constraints of virtual normal for depth predictioncited by 234
  20. 2022Diffusion models as plug-and-play priorscited by 231
  21. 2021Diffusion Models for Implicit Image Segmentation Ensemblescited by 198
  22. 2022BinsFormer: Revisiting Adaptive Bins for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 168
  23. 2022NeW CRFs: Neural Window Fully-connected CRFs for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 153
  24. 2019Pattern-Affinitive Propagation across Depth, Surface Normal and Semantic Segmentationcited by 142
  25. 2018Activation Functions: Comparison of trends in Practice and Research for Deep Learningcited by 130
  26. 2021Transformer-Based Attention Networks for Continuous Pixel-Wise Predictioncited by 125
  27. 2022DepthFormer: Exploiting Long-Range Correlation and Local Information for Accurate Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 118
  28. 2020Self-supervised Monocular Trained Depth Estimation using Self-attention and Discrete Disparity Volumecited by 116
  29. 2022P3Depth: Monocular Depth Estimation with a Piecewise Planarity Priorcited by 107
  30. 2022A Generalist Framework for Panoptic Segmentation of Images and Videoscited by 99
  31. 2022Attention Attention Everywhere: Monocular Depth Prediction with Skip Attentioncited by 93
  32. 2020Guiding Monocular Depth Estimation Using Depth-Attention Volumecited by 82
  33. 2018Learning Monocular Depth by Distilling Cross-domain Stereo Networkscited by 64
  34. 2021Channel-Wise Attention-Based Network for Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 63
  35. 2022Diffusion Adversarial Representation Learning for Self-supervised Vessel Segmentationcited by 55
  36. 2023VA-DepthNet: A Variational Approach to Single Image Depth Predictioncited by 54
  37. 2020Bidirectional Attention Network for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 48
  38. 2021Sparse Auxiliary Networks for Unified Monocular Depth Prediction and Completioncited by 39

50 most cited of 51 All 51 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 13; 2024: 32; 2025: 26; 2026: 11.

82 papers.

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  1. 2023Repurposing Diffusion-Based Image Generators for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 327
  2. 2023A Tale of Two Features: Stable Diffusion Complements DINO for Zero-Shot Semantic Correspondencecited by 301
  3. 2024Learning Temporally Consistent Video Depth from Video Diffusion Priorscited by 100
  4. 2024Fine-Tuning Image-Conditional Diffusion Models is Easier than You Thinkcited by 83
  5. 2025Marigold: Affordable Adaptation of Diffusion-Based Image Generators for Image Analysiscited by 78
  6. 2024DepthFM: Fast Monocular Depth Estimation with Flow Matchingcited by 76
  7. 2024InFusion: Inpainting 3D Gaussians via Learning Depth Completion from Diffusion Priorcited by 56
  8. 2023LDM3D: Latent Diffusion Model for 3Dcited by 53
  9. 2025Pixel-Perfect Depth with Semantics-Prompted Diffusion Transformerscited by 51
  10. 2024Marigold-DC: Zero-Shot Monocular Depth Completion with Guided Diffusioncited by 50
  11. 2024Lexicon3D: Probing Visual Foundation Models for Complex 3D Scene Understandingcited by 49
  12. 2024Stereo Anywhere: Robust Zero-Shot Deep Stereo Matching Even Where Either Stereo or Mono Failcited by 47
38 more
  1. 2024ECoDepth: Effective Conditioning of Diffusion Models for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 45
  2. 2023DreamSparse: Escaping from Plato's Cave with 2D Frozen Diffusion Model Given Sparse Viewscited by 31
  3. 2023FreeReg: Image-to-Point Cloud Registration Leveraging Pretrained Diffusion Models and Monocular Depth Estimatorscited by 31
  4. 2023Zero-Shot Metric Depth with a Field-of-View Conditioned Diffusion Modelcited by 29
  5. 2024Video Depth without Video Modelscited by 29
  6. 2024BetterDepth: Plug-and-Play Diffusion Refiner for Zero-Shot Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 28
  7. 2024Flowing from Words to Pixels: A Noise-Free Framework for Cross-Modality Evolutioncited by 26
  8. 2024Collaborative Control for Geometry-Conditioned PBR Image Generationcited by 22
  9. 2025UniFuture: A 4D Driving World Model for Future Generation and Perceptioncited by 22
  10. 2023Diffusion Model for Dense Matchingcited by 21
  11. 2025DepthMaster: Taming Diffusion Models for Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 19
  12. 2024Geometry Image Diffusion: Fast and Data-Efficient Text-to-3D with Image-Based Surface Representationcited by 17
  13. 2024Distillation of Diffusion Features for Semantic Correspondencecited by 17
  14. 2025Orchid: Image Latent Diffusion for Joint Appearance and Geometry Generationcited by 17
  15. 2024Scaling Properties of Diffusion Models for Perceptual Taskscited by 15
  16. 2025Depth AnyEvent: A Cross-Modal Distillation Paradigm for Event-Based Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 15
  17. 2024Zero-Shot Uncertainty Quantification using Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 14
  18. 2023MonoDiffusion: Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation Using Diffusion Modelcited by 13
  19. 2023Harnessing Diffusion Models for Visual Perception with Meta Promptscited by 13
  20. 2025Unified Dense Prediction of Video Diffusioncited by 13
  21. 2025The Serial Scaling Hypothesiscited by 13
  22. 2024PrimeDepth: Efficient Monocular Depth Estimation with a Stable Diffusion Preimagecited by 12
  23. 2025DreamCube: 3D Panorama Generation via Multi-plane Synchronizationcited by 12
  24. 2024Instruct Large Language Models to Drive like Humanscited by 11
  25. 2024Diffusion Models in 3D Vision: A Surveycited by 11
  26. 2025DIFFVSGG: Diffusion-Driven Online Video Scene Graph Generationcited by 11
  27. 2025GS-2DGS: Geometrically Supervised 2DGS for Reflective Object Reconstructioncited by 11
  28. 2024The Third Monocular Depth Estimation Challengecited by 10
  29. 2024Diffusion-Based Depth Inpainting for Transparent and Reflective Objectscited by 9
  30. 2024Scalable Autoregressive Monocular Depth Estimationcited by 9
  31. 2024SuperMat: Physically Consistent PBR Material Estimation at Interactive Ratescited by 9
  32. 2025The Fourth Monocular Depth Estimation Challengecited by 8
  33. 2024SCP-Diff: Spatial-Categorical Joint Prior for Diffusion Based Semantic Image Synthesiscited by 7
  34. 2024SteeredMarigold: Steering Diffusion Towards Depth Completion of Largely Incomplete Depth Mapscited by 7
  35. 2025Temporal Score Rescaling for Temperature Sampling in Diffusion and Flow Modelscited by 7
  36. 2023Adjacent-view Transformers for Supervised Surround-view Depth Estimationcited by 6
  37. 2024GRIN: Zero-Shot Metric Depth with Pixel-Level Diffusioncited by 6
  38. 2024DPBridge: Latent Diffusion Bridge for Dense Predictioncited by 6

50 most cited of 82 All 82 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2023Monocular Depth Estimation using Diffusion Models
  2. 2023The Surprising Effectiveness of Diffusion Models for Optical Flow and Monocular Depth Estimation
  3. 2024Diffusion Models for Monocular Depth Estimation: Overcoming Challenging Conditions
  4. 2025VistaDepth: Improving far-range Depth Estimation with Spectral Modulation and Adaptive Reweighting
  5. 2026Marigold V2: Revisiting Diffusion Transformers for Monocular Depth Estimation
  6. 2024FiffDepth: Feed-forward Transformation of Diffusion-Based Generators for Detailed Depth Estimation
  7. 2022DAG: Depth-Aware Guidance with Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models
  8. 2026ARDepth: Auto-regressive Monocular Depth Estimation with Progressive Visual Conditioning