Overview

This document describes how to efficiently store a depthmap inside common image containers, such as PNG and JPEG, while keeping the image containers compatible with existing image viewers. The depthmap is serialized and embedded inside an image container as described by the Adobe XMP standard.

A depthmap is defined as an image of values (integer or real) that represent distance from the view point, see Figure 1. The exact definition of depth can vary depending on the depth sensor. As an example, two common definitions are depth along the optical axis (typically the z-axis), and depth along the optic ray passing through each pixel.

Figure 1. An example color image (left) and a corresponding depthmap (right).