Tuesday, April 1, 2008

A neural network based real-time gaze tracker

Continuing on the neural network based eye trackers from the earlier post, this work by Nischal Piratla back in 2001 while his time at the Colorado State University. It uses a low resolution CCD camera in combination with a 3 layer back propagation neural network. Although low frame rates, 5 per second, it´s not too bad for running on a Pentium II 266MHz. However, the horizontal bar on the forehead would not do today =)

Abstract
"A real-time gaze-tracking system that estimates the user's eye gaze and computes the window of focused view on a computer monitor has been developed. This artificial neural network based system can be trained and customized for an individual. Unlike existing systems in which skin color features and/or other mountable equipment are needed, this system is based on a simple non-intrusive camera mounted on the monitor. Gaze point is accurately estimated within a 1 in. on a 19-in. monitor with a CCD camera having a 640 × 480 image resolution. The system performance is independent of user's forward and backward as well as upward and downward movements. The gaze-tracking system implementation and the factors affecting its performance are discussed and analyzed in detail. The features and implementation methods that make this system real-time are also explained."

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