Question 1

What is a depth map?

Accepted Answer

A depth map is an image that encodes how far each pixel is from the camera instead of its color — by convention brighter pixels are closer and darker pixels are farther away (this tool lets you flip that). Depth maps are the raw material for 3D-style effects: parallax and 2.5D camera moves, depth-of-field blur, fog, relighting, and AI image generation that follows the structure of a reference photo.

Question 2

How do I create a depth map from an image?

Accepted Answer

Drop the image into this tool and click Generate. A neural network (Depth Anything V2) estimates the distance of every pixel and renders it as a grayscale or color-mapped depth image, which you download as a PNG. It runs on your own device, so the result appears in a few seconds and the photo is never uploaded.

Question 3

Can I generate a depth map from a video?

Accepted Answer

Yes — drop in a video up to 60 seconds and the tool estimates depth for every frame, applies temporal smoothing so the depth doesn't flicker between frames, and encodes the result as an MP4 depth video. Video mode needs a browser with WebGPU (recent Chrome or Edge on a computer); image mode works everywhere.

Question 4

What AI model does this depth map generator use?

Accepted Answer

It runs Depth Anything V2 (Small), a state-of-the-art open monocular depth estimation model, converted to ONNX and executed locally in your browser with WebGPU acceleration. The ~50 MB model is downloaded once on first use and cached by your browser, so later runs start instantly.

Question 5

What can I use a depth map for?

Accepted Answer

Common uses: 2.5D parallax animations and 3D photo effects, ControlNet depth conditioning for Stable Diffusion and other AI image generators, compositing effects like synthetic depth-of-field and fog in After Effects or DaVinci Resolve, displacement maps in Blender, and spatial or lenticular imagery. The grayscale style is the standard machine-readable format; inferno and viridis are easier for humans to read.

Question 6

Is my file uploaded to a server?

Accepted Answer

No. This tool runs entirely in your browser using your device's own hardware. Your video never leaves your computer, nothing is uploaded, and nothing is stored. That also means it works on private files without any privacy risk.

Free AI Depth Map Generator — Image & Video

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