# CogStereo: Neural Stereo Matching with Implicit Spatial Cognition Embedding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22119 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22119/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Oct 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05499/) (2023)
- [Depth Anything V2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09414/) (2024)
- [DINOv3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10104/) (2025)
- [Depth Anything: Unleashing the Power of Large-Scale Unlabeled Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10891/) (2024)
- [Grounded SAM: Assembling Open-World Models for Diverse Visual Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14159/) (2024)
- [A Large Dataset to Train Convolutional Networks for Disparity, Optical Flow, and Scene Flow Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02134/) (2015)
- [Depth Pro: Sharp Monocular Metric Depth in Less Than a Second](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02073/) (2024)
- [Metric3Dv2: A Versatile Monocular Geometric Foundation Model for Zero-shot Metric Depth and Surface Normal Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15506/) (2024)
- [UniDepth: Universal Monocular Metric Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18913/) (2024)
- [Metric3D: Towards Zero-shot Metric 3D Prediction from A Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10984/) (2023)
- [RAFT-Stereo: Multilevel Recurrent Field Transforms for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07547/) (2021)
- [Repurposing Diffusion-Based Image Generators for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02145/) (2023)
- [Group-wise Correlation Stereo Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.04025/) (2019)
- [Practical Stereo Matching via Cascaded Recurrent Network with Adaptive Correlation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11483/) (2022)
- [Revisiting Stereo Depth Estimation From a Sequence-to-Sequence Perspective with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.02910/) (2020)
- [Iterative Geometry Encoding Volume for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06615/) (2023)
- [MiDaS v3.1 -- A Model Zoo for Robust Monocular Relative Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14460/) (2023)
- [FoundationStereo: Zero-Shot Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09898/) (2025)
- [Hierarchical Neural Architecture Search for Deep Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13501/) (2020)
- [Attention Concatenation Volume for Accurate and Efficient Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02146/) (2022)
- [Selective-Stereo: Adaptive Frequency Information Selection for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00486/) (2024)
- [Marigold: Affordable Adaptation of Diffusion-Based Image Generators for Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09358/) (2025)
- [Prompting Depth Anything for 4K Resolution Accurate Metric Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14015/) (2024)
- [PCW-Net: Pyramid Combination and Warping Cost Volume for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.12797/) (2020)
- [IGEV++: Iterative Multi-range Geometry Encoding Volumes for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.00638/) (2024)
- [DEFOM-Stereo: Depth Foundation Model Based Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09466/) (2025)
- [Stereo Anywhere: Robust Zero-Shot Deep Stereo Matching Even Where Either Stereo or Mono Fail](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04472/) (2024)
- [Neural Markov Random Field for Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11193/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Beyond Visual Similarity: Entity-Aligned Retrieval for Knowledge-Based Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21450/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep stereo matching has advanced significantly on benchmark datasets through fine-tuning but falls short of the zero-shot generalization seen in foundation models in other vision tasks. We introduce CogStereo, a novel framework that addresses challenging regions, such as occlusions or weak textures, without relying on dataset-specific priors. CogStereo embeds implicit spatial cognition into the refinement process by using monocular depth features as priors, capturing holistic scene understanding beyond local correspondences. This approach ensures structurally coherent disparity estimation, even in areas where geometry alone is inadequate. CogStereo employs a dual-conditional refinement mechanism that combines pixel-wise uncertainty with cognition-guided features for consistent global correction of mismatches. Extensive experiments on Scene Flow, KITTI, Middlebury, ETH3D, EuRoc, and real-world demonstrate that CogStereo not only achieves state-of-the-art results but also excels in cross-domain generalization, shifting stereo vision towards a cognition-driven approach.