US Patent 10003787 Method, system and apparatus for refining a depth map

A method of refining a depth map determines a depth map by estimating a depth of pixels of an associated image. The depth map is divided into connected components based on similarity of each of the pixels of the depth map. A band of pixels along a boundary of each of the connected components is selected. A confidence score is assigned to pixels within each band of pixels. The confidence score increases with the estimated depth of the pixels. The depth map is updated based on the assigned confidence scores to determine a refined depth map.