# SeeGroup: Multi-Layer Depth Estimation of Transparent Surfaces via Self-Determined Grouping

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28735 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28735/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 50 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 50)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Neural Machine Translation by Jointly Learning to Align and Translate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.0473/) (2014)
- [Towards Robust Monocular Depth Estimation: Mixing Datasets for Zero-shot Cross-dataset Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.01341/) (2019)
- [Depth Anything V2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09414/) (2024)
- [Depth Anything: Unleashing the Power of Large-Scale Unlabeled Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10891/) (2024)
- [Depth Map Prediction from a Single Image using a Multi-Scale Deep Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.2283/) (2014)
- [MegaDepth: Learning Single-View Depth Prediction from Internet Photos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00607/) (2018)
- [Deep Ordinal Regression Network for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02446/) (2018)
- [ZoeDepth: Zero-shot Transfer by Combining Relative and Metric Depth](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12288/) (2023)
- [AdaBins: Depth Estimation using Adaptive Bins](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.14141/) (2020)
- [Predicting Depth, Surface Normals and Semantic Labels with a Common Multi-Scale Convolutional Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4734/) (2014)
- [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)
- [From Big to Small: Multi-Scale Local Planar Guidance for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10326/) (2019)
- [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)
- [MoGe: Unlocking Accurate Monocular Geometry Estimation for Open-Domain Images with Optimal Training Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19115/) (2024)
- [GeoWizard: Unleashing the Diffusion Priors for 3D Geometry Estimation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12013/) (2024)
- [MoGe-2: Accurate Monocular Geometry with Metric Scale and Sharp Details](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02546/) (2025)
- [Enforcing geometric constraints of virtual normal for depth prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.12209/) (2019)
- [UniDepthV2: Universal Monocular Metric Depth Estimation Made Simpler](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20110/) (2025)
- [BinsFormer: Revisiting Adaptive Bins for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00987/) (2022)
- [NeW CRFs: Neural Window Fully-connected CRFs for Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01502/) (2022)
- [Infinigen Indoors: Photorealistic Indoor Scenes using Procedural Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11824/) (2024)
- [Transformer-Based Attention Networks for Continuous Pixel-Wise Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12091/) (2021)
- [ClearGrasp: 3D Shape Estimation of Transparent Objects for Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.02550/) (2019)
- [DepthFormer: Exploiting Long-Range Correlation and Local Information for Accurate Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14211/) (2022)
- [Segmenting Transparent Objects in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13948/) (2020)
- [KeyPose: Multi-View 3D Labeling and Keypoint Estimation for Transparent Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.02805/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Transparent objects are common in daily life, and it is important to understand their multilayer depth, including the transparent surface and the objects behind it. Existing methods for multilayer depth typically extend single-layer prediction. They define layers by the front-to-back ordering of 3D points and predict the layers sequentially. However, as layered geometry can admit multiple valid groupings of 3D points into layers, a predefined grouping strategy is inherently restrictive. In this work, we propose SeeGroup, a multi-layer depth estimation method that avoids imposing a predefined grouping and allows the model itself to adaptively assign surfaces to depth maps. We formulate per-pixel multi-layer depth as a point process, treating depth layers as unordered events along each camera ray. This induces a permutation-invariant likelihood over the observed depth layers, yielding a loss that naturally supports arbitrary layer groupings. Experiments demonstrate that our method significantly advances the state of the art of multi-layer depth estimation, improving quadruplet relative depth accuracy on LayeredDepth benchmark from 61.34% to 70.09%. Code is available at https://github.com/princeton-vl/SeeGroup.
