What is the difference between a range image and a depth map?

A depth map contains the distances of points in the scene to a plane. A range image contains the distances of points in the scene to another point. This point is very often the camera's position.

1. What is the difference between range and depth?
2. What is a range image?
3. What is the difference between depth map and disparity map?
4. What does a depth map do?

What is the difference between range and depth?

Depth is a measure of vertical distance below a system reference water level. Range is a measure of linear distance from the center of the transducer face. The altitude of objects is calculated with respect to the position of the platform system reference point.

What is a range image?

Range images are a special class of digital images. Each pixel of a range image expresses the distance between a known reference frame and a visible point in the scene. Therefore, a range image reproduces the 3D structure of a scene.

What is the difference between depth map and disparity map?

Disparity is the horizontal displacement of a point's projections between the left and the right image. Whereas, depth refers to the z coordinate (usually z) of a point located in the real 3D world (x, y, z).

What does a depth map do?

In 3D computer graphics and computer vision, a depth map is an image or image channel that contains information relating to the distance of the surfaces of scene objects from a viewpoint. The term is related (and may be analogous) to depth buffer, Z-buffer, Z-buffering, and Z-depth.