ultralytics 8.4.122

v8.4.122 - Use canonical PNG depth maps (#25858)

on Python PyPI

🌟 Summary

v8.4.122 standardizes Ultralytics depth estimation around compact, self-describing 16-bit PNG depth maps—simplifying the data pipeline and significantly reducing storage requirements. 🖼️📉

📊 Key Changes

• Canonical depth format introduced: Depth targets now use 16-bit PNG files with embedded metadata describing their meter range.
• Invalid pixels are clearly represented: Pixel value 0 is reserved for missing or invalid depth values, allowing training and evaluation to ignore them safely.
• New depth utilities added:
  • save_depth_png() writes depth maps in the required format.
  • load_depth() reconstructs meter-valued depth maps for training and inference.
• NPY support removed: The depth loader, converters, manifests, path handling, and compatibility fallbacks no longer support .npy depth maps.
• Dataset support updated: Built-in depth dataset configurations and generators—including Depth8, NYU Depth, KITTI, SUN RGB-D, DIODE, Hypersim, TartanAir, Virtual KITTI 2, and ARKitScenes—now produce and consume PNG depth maps.
• NDJSON conversion updated: Depth records must use the linear-u16 PNG encoding contract.
• Documentation and tests refreshed: Depth dataset guides, task documentation, reference pages, and validation tests now describe the PNG-only workflow.
• Smaller published archives:
  • Depth8 archive reduced to approximately 8.9% of its previous size.
  • NYU Depth archive reduced to approximately 39.6% of its previous size. 🚀

🎯 Purpose & Impact

• Lower storage and download costs: PNG compression substantially reduces dataset and hosted asset sizes.
• More portable depth files: Each PNG contains the information needed to interpret its depth values, making files easier to move, inspect, and process independently.
• Simpler, more consistent tooling: All supported depth datasets now follow one file format and one loading path.
• Improved browser/display behavior: The encoding preserves valid depth information when 16-bit assets are viewed through systems that reduce them to 8-bit displays.
• Important migration requirement: Existing custom datasets using .npy depth maps must be converted to the new metadata-enabled PNG format before use with this release. Existing hosted depth assets also require the planned production migration; no runtime compatibility layer is included.
• No major model architecture change: This release primarily improves the YOLO26-Depth data representation and dataset pipeline, rather than changing model structure or training objectives.

What's Changed

• Use canonical PNG depth maps by @glenn-jocher in #25858

Full Changelog: v8.4.121...v8.4.122