KITTI Depth Dataset#
The KITTI dataset is a real-world outdoor autonomous-driving benchmark captured from a moving vehicle in and around the city of Karlsruhe. For monocular depth estimation, the ground-truth depth is derived from a Velodyne HDL-64 LiDAR scanner and densified using the method of Uhrig et al. 2017. The resulting depth maps remain sparse, with roughly 16–20% of pixels carrying a valid depth value. KITTI is the only real outdoor long-range source in the YOLO26-Depth pretraining mix and also serves as the KITTI Eigen evaluation benchmark.
Key Features#
- Real outdoor driving scenes with depths spanning up to roughly 80 m, far beyond the typical indoor range.
- Depth ground truth obtained from a Velodyne HDL-64 LiDAR and densified with the Sparsity Invariant CNNs approach of Uhrig et al. 2017.
- Sparse supervision: only about 16–20% of pixels per image carry a valid depth value; invalid pixels are masked out of the loss and metrics.
- Stereo image pairs (left
image_02and rightimage_03) provide additional viewpoints for training. - Depth values are stored as
.npyfloat32 arrays in meters, following the Ultralytics depth dataset format.
Dataset Structure#
The KITTI depth data used by Ultralytics is split into two subsets:
- Training split: 55,198 images (left
image_02and rightimage_03). All 28 KITTI Eigen test drives are excluded from training to keep evaluation fair. - Evaluation split: the KITTI Eigen test split — its 652 left-camera frames that have improved ground truth. Evaluation uses an 80 m depth cap and median (scale-only) alignment between predictions and ground truth.
The depth range reaches approximately 80 m, and the dataset YAML (depth-kitti.yaml) sets max_depth: 80 accordingly.
Role in YOLO26-Depth#
KITTI supplies the only real outdoor, long-range supervision in the YOLO26-Depth pretraining mix, complementing the predominantly indoor sources. It is also the standard KITTI Eigen benchmark for reporting driving-scene depth accuracy.
KITTI is a key example of why the depth head is unbounded (log mode): a fixed 10 m output ceiling cannot represent 80 m driving scenes. See the depth task page for details on the head output range and max_depth handling.
Results#
KITTI Eigen delta1 accuracy by model size (higher is better):
| Model | KITTI Eigen δ1 |
|---|---|
| YOLO26n-Depth | 0.878 |
| YOLO26s-Depth | 0.879 |
| YOLO26m-Depth | 0.913 |
| YOLO26l-Depth | 0.926 |
| YOLO26x-Depth | 0.932 |
Measured on the 652-frame canonical split with imgsz=768 and rect=False. They are not directly comparable to published KITTI numbers: val stretches each image to a square imgsz and nearest-resamples the sparse ground truth onto it, where the reference evaluators instead resize the prediction back to the native ground-truth resolution; DepthMetrics masks ground truth against max_depth where the improved-ground-truth protocol masks gt > 0 and caps only the prediction; it pools every valid pixel of the split rather than averaging the per-image metric; and the released weights were trained with the previous split, which placed 72 of these test frames in the training set.
Dataset YAML#
A YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) file is used to define the dataset configuration. It contains information about the dataset's paths, classes, and other relevant information such as the maximum depth.
# Ultralytics 🚀 AGPL-3.0 License - https://ultralytics.com/license
# KITTI dataset for monocular depth estimation — real outdoor driving, Velodyne HDL-64 LiDAR (densified), sparse, up to ~80 m
# Documentation: https://docs.ultralytics.com/datasets/depth/kitti
# Example usage: yolo depth train data=depth-kitti.yaml model=yolo26n-depth.pt
# parent
# ├── ultralytics
# └── datasets
# └── depth-kitti ← downloads here (~190 GB archives, ~140 GB converted)
# ├── images/{train,val} # RGB images
# └── depth/{train,val} # paired *.npy, float32 meters (images/ -> depth/)
# If an interrupted download leaves a partial dataset, delete the depth-kitti dir and re-run to rebuild it.
# The download only runs when the val images are missing (train is never checked), so a depth-kitti dir
# built before this split fix keeps the old split until it is deleted and rebuilt.
path: depth-kitti # dataset root dir (relative to Ultralytics settings 'datasets_dir')
train: images/train # train images (relative to 'path') 55198 images
val: images/val # val images (relative to 'path') 652 images (KITTI Eigen test split, left camera)
max_depth: 80 # (m) maximum valid depth; GT beyond this is excluded from val metrics
nc: 1
names:
0: depth
channels: 3
# Download script/URL (optional)
download: |
import shutil
from pathlib import Path
import cv2
import numpy as np
from ultralytics.utils import TQDM
from ultralytics.utils.downloads import download
# The 28 KITTI Eigen test scenes as "<drive> <frame indices>" -> val; every other annotated drive -> train. val is
# the 697-frame Eigen et al. (NeurIPS 2014) test split restricted to frames with improved GT here: 652 left-camera.
EIGEN_TEST = """
2011_09_26_drive_0002 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48 51 54 57 60 63 69
2011_09_26_drive_0009 16 32 48 64 80 96 112 128 144 160 176 196 212 228 244 260 276 292 308 324 340 356 372 388
2011_09_26_drive_0013 5 10 20 30 35 40 45 50 60 65 70 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135
2011_09_26_drive_0020 6 9 12 15 18 21 27 33 36 42 45 48 51 54 57 60 63 66 69 72 75 78
2011_09_26_drive_0023 18 36 54 72 90 108 126 144 162 180 198 216 252 270 288 306 324 342 360 378 396 414 432 450 468
2011_09_26_drive_0027 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70 77 84 91 98 112 119 126 133 140 147 161 168 175 182
2011_09_26_drive_0029 14 28 42 56 70 84 98 112 126 140 154 168 182 196 268 296 310 324 338 352 366 380 394 408
2011_09_26_drive_0036 32 64 96 128 160 192 224 256 288 320 352 384 416 448 480 512 544 576 608 640 672 704 768
2011_09_26_drive_0046 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115
2011_09_26_drive_0048 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
2011_09_26_drive_0052 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 26 28 30 32 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52
2011_09_26_drive_0056 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 110 121 143 154 165 176 187 198 209 220 231 242 253 264 275 286
2011_09_26_drive_0059 14 28 42 56 70 84 98 112 126 140 154 182 196 210 224 238 274 288 302 316 330 344 358
2011_09_26_drive_0064 22 44 66 88 110 154 176 198 220 242 264 286 308 330 352 374 396 418 440 462 484 506 528 550
2011_09_26_drive_0084 49 62 75 88 101 114 127 140 153 179 192 205 218 231 244 257 270 283 296 309 322 335 348 361 374
2011_09_26_drive_0086 7 34 61 88 115 142 169 196 223 250 277 304 331 358 385 412 439 466 493 520 574 601 628 655 682
2011_09_26_drive_0093 16 32 48 64 80 96 112 128 144 160 176 192 208 224 240 256 305 321 337 353 369 385 401 417
2011_09_26_drive_0096 19 38 57 76 95 114 133 152 171 190 209 228 247 266 285 304 323 342 361 380 399 418 437 456
2011_09_26_drive_0101 80 114 148 182 216 284 318 352 386 420 454 488 522 556 590 624 658 692 726 760 794 828 862 896 930
2011_09_26_drive_0106 15 35 43 51 59 67 75 83 91 99 107 115 123 131 139 147 155 163 171 179 187 195 203 211 219
2011_09_26_drive_0117 26 52 78 104 130 156 182 208 234 260 286 312 338 364 390 416 442 468 494 546 572 598 624 650
2011_09_28_drive_0002 6 9 12 18 21 24 30 33 36 39 45 48 51 54 57 60 63 72 78 81 84 87 90
2011_09_29_drive_0071 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360 396 432 468 504 540 576 612 735 771 807 879 915 951
2011_09_30_drive_0016 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 110 121 132 143 154 165 176 187 198 209 220 231 242 253 264
2011_09_30_drive_0018 107 214 428 535 642 749 856 963 1070 1177 1284 1391 1498 1605 1712 1819 1926 2033 2140 2247 2419 2526 2633 2740
2011_09_30_drive_0027 41 82 123 164 205 246 287 328 369 410 451 492 533 574 615 656 753 794 835 876 917 958 1040 1081
2011_10_03_drive_0027 181 362 543 734 915 1096 1277 1458 1639 1820 2001 2363 2544 2725 2906 3087 3268 3449 3630 3811 3992 4173 4354 4535
2011_10_03_drive_0047 32 64 96 128 160 192 224 288 320 352 384 416 448 480 512 544 576 608 640 672 704 736 768 800"""
EIGEN_TEST = {ln.split()[0]: {int(i) for i in ln.split()[1:]} for ln in EIGEN_TEST.strip().splitlines()}
# Annotated drives excluded from the release training set (raw data was unavailable at build time)
SKIP_DRIVES = {"2011_09_28_drive_0104", "2011_09_28_drive_0135", "2011_09_28_drive_0177", "2011_09_28_drive_0214"}
# Download the improved sparse GT (~14 GB) and the raw recordings it covers (~175 GB)
dir = Path(yaml["path"]) # dataset root dir
base = "https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/avg-kitti"
download([f"{base}/data_depth_annotated.zip"], dir=dir / "source", delete=True, exist_ok=True)
gt_drives = sorted(p for p in (dir / "source" / "data_depth_annotated").glob("*/*_sync") if p.name[:-5] not in SKIP_DRIVES)
urls = [f"{base}/raw_data/{p.name[:-5]}/{p.name}.zip" for p in gt_drives]
download(urls, dir=dir / "source" / "raw", delete=True, exist_ok=True, threads=4)
# Convert: GT PNGs are uint16 meters*256; RGB frames come from the matching raw drive
for split in ("train", "val"):
(dir / "images" / split).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
(dir / "depth" / split).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
for gt in TQDM(gt_drives, desc="Converting"):
drive = gt.name[:-5] # 2011_09_26_drive_0002
split = "val" if drive in EIGEN_TEST else "train"
# val is the canonical Eigen test split: left camera only, and only its 652 listed frames
for cam in ("image_02",) if split == "val" else ("image_02", "image_03"):
for png in sorted((gt / "proj_depth" / "groundtruth" / cam).glob("*.png")):
if split == "val" and int(png.stem) not in EIGEN_TEST[drive]:
continue
name = f"{drive}_{cam[-2:]}_{png.stem}"
depth = cv2.imread(str(png), cv2.IMREAD_ANYDEPTH).astype(np.float32) / 256.0
np.save(dir / "depth" / split / f"{name}.npy", depth)
raw = dir / "source" / "raw" / drive[:10] / gt.name / cam / "data" / png.name
raw.replace(dir / "images" / split / f"{name}.png")
shutil.rmtree(dir / "source")Usage#
To train a YOLO26n-Depth model on the KITTI dataset for 100 epochs, you can use the following code snippets. For a comprehensive list of available arguments, refer to the model Training page.
from ultralytics import YOLO
# Load a pretrained depth model
model = YOLO("yolo26n-depth.pt")
# Train the model on KITTI
results = model.train(data="depth-kitti.yaml", epochs=100, imgsz=640)Pretrained Models#
Pretrained YOLO26-Depth models auto-download from the Ultralytics v8.4.0 assets release when first referenced by name:
Citations and Acknowledgments#
If you use the KITTI dataset in your research or development work, please cite the following papers:
@article{geiger2013vision,
title={Vision meets Robotics: The KITTI Dataset},
author={Geiger, Andreas and Lenz, Philip and Stiller, Christoph and Urtasun, Raquel},
journal={The International Journal of Robotics Research},
year={2013},
publisher={SAGE Publications}
}
@inproceedings{uhrig2017sparsity,
title={Sparsity Invariant CNNs},
author={Uhrig, Jonas and Schneider, Nick and Schneider, Lukas and Franke, Uwe and Brox, Thomas and Geiger, Andreas},
booktitle={International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV)},
year={2017}
}We would like to acknowledge the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago for creating and maintaining the KITTI dataset, and Uhrig et al. for the depth densification method that makes dense supervision possible.