Support for 16-Bit Color Depth

Nobody has claimed this yet.

The depth models for ControlNet can produce some really high quality images that have a phenomenal understanding of relative perspective, especially if used with a dedicated depth map as opposed to a preprocessor.

However, it has one very serious drawback:

From my testing, it seems as though ControlNet only supports 8-bit color depth. What this means is that there are only 255 levels of depth that ControlNet can interpret, and on images where there is a big difference in positioning between scene elements a lot of fine details can be lost. This can be an issue even in relatively small scenes where there is only a maximum depth of around 15 meters between scene elements, but it can especially become a massive issue on larger scenes like landscape shots where there can sometimes be multiple kilometers between elements.

This issue can be somewhat remedied by combining both a depth and normal map, but allowing for 16-bits of color depth, or 65,536 levels of depth, if a user chooses to toggle this option would allow for far more precision in generated images at the cost of performance, which I believe would be a trade-off a lot of people would be willing to take if they could.

The issue does not name any files, tests, or entry points, so begin by locating the depth-model input and preprocessing paths in the repository. The work is done when an optional 16-bit depth path is implemented, preserves the requested precision, and has tests or examples covering the new option and its trade-offs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.