Depth Sensing

The ability of a sensor or system to measure the distance from itself to objects in the scene, producing a depth map or point cloud rather than a flat image. Common approaches include stereo vision (triangulating between two cameras), structured light (projecting a known pattern), time-of-flight, and LiDAR. Depth sensing is a foundation of modern assistive navigation, obstacle-avoidance, and gesture-recognition systems for users with visual or motor disabilities, because it lets software reason about the geometry of a space rather than only its appearance.