[pen2l]

Google Tango (https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/) is able to do pretty impressive 3d reconstruction from what I hear. However it has a number of cameras, whilst linked technique can work with just one image (with enough training).

[leeoniya]

reconstructing depth from 2+ offset images is vastly simpler than from a single frame.

[dr_zoidberg]

There's an OpenCV tutorial for those wishing to try it[0].

[0] http://docs.opencv.org/3.0-beta/doc/py_tutorials/py_calib3d/...

[pen2l]

Yup, but I think there's a desire to get good 3d-reconstruction techniques for single images because in practice you often want to do reconstruction in extremely small environments where using multiple cameras is sometimes not feasible for various reasons.

[leeoniya]

Google Camera can already do this from a single camera. It takes a bunch of photos as you move the phone around a bit and reconstructs the depth from multiple shots.

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2014/04/lens-blur-in-new-...