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. Depth Anything V2 estimates the distance of every pixel and renders a grayscale or color-mapped depth image.

Question 3

Can I generate a depth map from a video?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Add a video up to 60 seconds and the tool estimates depth for every frame, applies temporal smoothing, and creates an MP4 depth video.

Question 4

What AI model does this depth map generator use?

Accepted Answer

It uses Depth Anything V2 (Small), an open monocular depth-estimation model.

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.

Free AI Depth Map Generator — Image & Video

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