METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONOCULAR DEPTH ESTIMATION OF PERSONS

Systems and methods are provided for estimating the 3D joint location of skeleton joints from an image segment of an object and a 2D joint heatmaps comprising 2D locations of skeleton joints on the image segment. This includes applying the image segment and 2D joint heatmaps to a convolutional neural network containing at least one 3D convolutional layer block, wherein the 2D resolution is reduced at each 3D convolutional layer and the depth resolution is expanded to produce an estimated depth for each joint. Combining the 2D location of each kind of joint with the estimated depth of the kind of joint generates an estimated 3D joint position of the skeleton joint.