Structuring Variability in Human Gait Datasets: A Covariate-Centered Taxonomy and Systematic Review of Image- and Depth-Based Collections

Human gait datasets play a central role in the development and evaluation of computer vision models. However, the current dataset landscape remains highly heterogeneous, with inconsistent reporting of acquisition conditions, user variability, and sensing configurations, which limits reproducibility and hinders principled cross-dataset comparability. In this work, we propose a covariate-centered, modality-agnostic taxonomy for gait datasets, explicitly structuring variability across scene-level, user-level, and sensor-level factors. The proposed framework enables consistent characterization of datasets through a standardized set of covariates (A–R), bridging differences across application domains and sensing modalities. Following a systematic review protocol aligned with PRISMA 2020, we analyze 47 publicly available image- and depth-based human gait datasets spanning healthcare, biometric, and attribute-recognition application domains. Using the proposed taxonomy, we derive a quantitative analysis of covariate coverage, revealing systematic biases in current dataset design.