Martin Tall On Gaze Interaction

EyeTech EyeOn

2012-01-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

A video from EyeTech that features Michael who suffers from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS). Great little clip that shows what computer control without gaze-adapted interfaces comes down to. Luckily Michael can use voice recognition software for typing, text input using eye movements alone is a cumbersome process (source).

Tobii @ CES 2012

2012-01-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

Today's big news in eye tracking: "Tobii's Gaze interface lets you use your eyes to move a cursor, perform gestures in Windows 8" (Engadget). Plenty of videos from the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES2012) are published online. Interesting quote found on ComputerSweden website "estimated price is US$6000 when it becomes available", which as we heard before means sometime later (years).

Live demonstration.
Promotion video.

Reality is said to beat fiction. Every time?

Senseye, eye control for mobile devices

2011-12-12T10:17:00.001-08:00

Senseye website
The Next Web: Senseye will let you control your mobile phone with your eyes
The Blaze: New meaning for hands free control

Driver drowsiness demo by Tobii

2011-12-01T05:56:00.001-08:00

Driver drowsiness detection is an active area of R&D where eye tracking definitely has a role to play. Tobii just presented a demo video showcasing their system. This is the first public demonstration where we actually get to see their eye detection visualized. One can only hope that this is the beginning of a more transparent approach from a company that previously have avoided showing the core technology in action. Judging by the video the eye region detection appears to be very robust, the dual camera setup clearly aids in reducing the frequency of false detection. For the specific application of driver drowsiness the accuracy of estimated gaze point-of-regard is less important as the primary area of interest is the degree of eye-lid closure, which in the domain is called PERCLOS (percentage of eye closure). This is potentially easier to accomplish compared to full gaze-estimation but placing the equipment inside a vehicle poses additional challenges. The imaging conditions will vary more compared to a traditional computer-display based system, for example direct sunlight, wider angles and head rotation. For a consumer safety application robustness is key, going from 90% to 99.9% detection rates is a clear challenge for all the companies attempting to push this technology into the automotive market. The application is clearly worthwhile and the manufactures want the technology, but is it ready?

On a side note, the sunglasses demonstrated in this video are lightly tainted. I did some testing last night with a pair of dark (black) Rayban and two 850nm IR lightsources (2x20 LEDs) and the eyes were barely visible. Guess it depends on the type of glasses and the illumination..

EyeDrone - Eye gaze controlled navigation

2011-11-14T14:31:00.001-08:00

Demonstration for eye-gaze controlled navigation. The goal was to move the the point of gaze to the center of the screen, simply put "where you look is where it goes". This is the popular AR.Drone quadricopter controlled with this policy using an EyeLink 2000 eye-tracker. The drone pivots left and right when the operator looks into those directions. It tilts up and down (making it fly backwards and forwards) when the operator looks up or down. EyeDrone was implemented by Lucas C Parra in C++ with much help from Michael Quintian. The chin rest here is not really needed as the basic control algorithm is inherently stable and miscalibrations are of little concern.

Learn more at:http://bme.ccny.cuny.edu/faculty/lparra/eyeNavigate/index.html
Explore the Neural Engineering Group at CCNY - http://neuralengr.com

Low Cost Eye Tracking for Commercial Gaming: eyeAsteroids and eyeShoot in the Dark!

2011-11-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

Latest update from Stephen Vickers and Howell Istance at the Centre for Computational Intelligence, De Montfort University who have been doing research and development of gaze-based gaming for several years now. Their latest project has been shortlisted in the consumer category of The Enginner Awards 2011. Congratulations on an awesome job!

"Using your eyes and where you are looking to interact with computer games represents an exciting new direction that game play can take, following the success of whole body interaction enabled by the Kinect and the Wii. The Innovation Fellowship has supported the development and demonstration of a low-cost eye tracker by De Montfort University, in collaboration with Sleepy Dog, the East Midlands games company that produced the Buzz-it controller and games. The low-cost eye tracker utilised the ITU Gazetracking library and was produced as a fully working pre-production prototype. In the project, three different games were produced to demonstrate different ways in which eye gaze can be used to make game play more immersive and exciting.

This video demostrates two of them.

eyeAsteroidsThe ship flies towards where you are looking and the space bar is used to fire.
eyeShoot in the Dark!The torch shines at where you are looking and the mouse is used to move the cross-hair and fire.

SMI Glasses now available

2011-09-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

The SMI Glasses, which we got a sneak-peak at before last Christmas and specs in April are now available for sale. SMI engineers have managed to squeeze two 30Hz eye tracking cameras and a high definition scene camera into the frame weighting only 75 grams. The advantage of tracking both eyes is that it enables parallax compensation where the accuracy is maintained regardless if you look close or far in the scene. In addition, binocular tracking most often yields better accuracy as it provides the opportunity to average both samples or to discard one with low validity. The HD scene camera captures 24 frames per second at 1280x960 pixels, a clear advantage. All in all, better late than never, SMI is back with a highly competitive product in the market.

ETRA 2012 - Call for papers

2011-08-31T23:25:00.000-07:00

"The Seventh ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA 2012) will be held in Santa Barbara, California on March 28th-30th, 2012. The ETRA conference series focuses on all aspects of eye movement research and applications across a wide range of disciplines. The symposium presents research that advances the state-of-the-art in these areas, leading to new capabilities in gaze tracking systems, gaze aware applications, gaze based interaction, eye movement data analysis, etc. For ETRA 2012, we invite papers in all areas of eye tracking research and applications."

ETRA 2012 THEME: MOBILE EYE TRACKING

Mobile devices are becoming more powerful every day. Embedding eye tracking and gaze-based applications in mobile devices raises new challenges and opportunities to many aspects of eye tracking research. ETRA 2012 invites papers tackling the challenges, or exploring new research opportunities of mobile eye tracking.

GENERAL AREAS OF INTEREST

Eye Tracking Technology

Advances in eye tracking hardware, software and algorithms such as: 2D and 3D eye tracking systems, calibration, low cost eye tracking, natural light eye tracking, predictive models, etc.

Eye Tracking Data Analysis

Methods, procedures and analysis tools for processing raw gaze data as well as fixations and gaze patterns. Example topics are: scan path analysis, fixation detection algorithms, and visualization techniques of gaze data.

Visual Attention and Eye Movement Control

Applied and experimental studies investigating visual attention and eye movements to gain insight in eye movement control, cognition and attention, or for design evaluation of visual stimuli. Examples are: usability and web studies using eye tracking, and eye movement behavior in everyday activities such as driving and reading.

Eye Tracking Applications

Eye tracking as a human-computer input method, either as a replacement to traditional input methods or as a complement. Examples are: assistive technologies, gaze enhanced interaction and interfaces, multimodal interaction, gaze in augmented and mixed reality systems, and gaze-contingent displays.

SUBMISSIONS

Authors are invited to submit original work in the formats of Full paper (8 pages) and Short paper (4 pages). The papers will undergo a rigorous review process assessing the originality and quality of the work as well as the relevance for eye tracking research and applications. Papers presented at ETRA 2012 will be available in the ACM digital library. Submission formats and instructions are available at the conference web site.

IMPORTANT DATES

Oct. 07th, 2011 Full Paper abstracts submission due

Oct. 14th, 2011 Full Papers submission due

Nov. 21st, 2011 Full Papers acceptance notification

Dec. 07th, 2011 Short Papers submission due

Jan. 16th, 2012 Short Papers acceptance notification

Jan. 23rd, 2012 Camera ready papers due

CONFERENCE VENUE

ETRA 2012 will be held at the gorgeous Doubletree Resort in Santa Barbara, California, a 24-acre, mission-style resort hotel facing the Pacific Ocean, located on one of Southern California’s most beautiful coastlines.

SPONSORSHIP

ETRA 2012 is co-sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI), and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH).

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

Carlos Hitoshi Morimoto - University of São Paulo, Brazil

Howell Istance - De Montfort University, UK

PROGRAM CHAIRS

Jeffrey B. Mulligan - NASA, USA

Pernilla Qvarfordt - FX Palo Alto, USA

PROGRAM AREA CHAIRS

Andrew Duchowski, Clemson University, USA
Päivi Majaranta, University of Tampere, Finland
Joe Goldberg, Oracle, USA
Shu-Chieh Wu, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Qiang Ji, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
Jeff Pelz, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Moshe Eizenman, University of Toronto, USA

Job opening at Duke University: Software developer with research focus

2011-08-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Under the direction of the Chair of the Department of Radiology at Duke University and an international research group, the Software Engineer is responsible for developing and maintaining a research platform used to study visual perception. This research project utilizes eye trackers to capture gaze paths as the Radiologists search through medical image data sets. Your role involves rapid software development; as such you should be comfortable with swiftly assembling software on short iterations without formal requirements.

Tasks and Activities:

Rapid software development to support research activities without formal requirements.

Analyze design and architectural issues, and adjust existing system design and procedures to solve problems in a dynamic environment.

Solving a wide range of problems ranging from user interface design to more complex architectural design without supervision.

Readily accept responsibility and demonstrate ability to work independently.

Responsible for designing, developing, implementing, testing and maintaining software.

Regularly communicate project progress, issues, and risks to project manager.

Organizing datacollection with human subjects using eye tracking devices and the developed software platform.

Qualifications:

Required:

Strong technical knowledge and experience in the development, implementation and maintenance of an information system.

Aptitude to learn and understand change in software development process, procedures and methodologies.

Demonstrated experience with scientific methodology, academic writing and basic statistical analysis.

5+ years of software development experience in object-orient programming technologies.

2+ years of experience with Microsoft .Net C# and Windows Presentation Foundation.

Detailed technical knowledge and experience in use of data structures and network programming using TCP/IP and UDP.

Desired:

Experience with eye track systems or other forms of video-based tracking systems.

Experience from software engineering in a research setting.

Experience with the DICOM Medical Image format and visualization.

Experience designing or implementing algorithms for data analysis and image processing.

Education
MS+ in Computer Science or equivalent

Please visit this page to apply for the opening.

Tobii laptop demo at All Things Digital

2011-07-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Gender specific gaze difference

2011-07-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

LG introduces the world first Glasses-Free 3D monitor with eye-tracking technology

2011-07-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today LG announced a 20" LCD display with built-in "eye tracking" technology that enables glasses-free 3D imaging which moves this technology closer to the consumer market. The image below does, as far as I can tell, not reveal any infrared illuminators, a requirement for all known systems with high accuracy so it's probably more of a rough estimation system than a full-blown remote system. Best known accuracy (published research) under natural light is about 3-4 degrees of angle, with their financial resources they could potentially achieve better results.

Left. The "special" eye tracking camera sensor. Looks like a rather typical webcam CMOS sensor to me. Unless they are doing some magic it will not allow accurate gaze estimation. Regardless, makes me wonder if 3D displays is the path by which eye tracking goes mainstream? Is this related to the collaboration between Seeing Machines and SuperD announced earlier this year or just a competing solution? Details are sparse, I'll keep you posted as it becomes available.

Official press release:

SEOUL, July, 13, 2011 – LG Electronics (LG) today unveiled the world’s first glasses-free monitor utilizing eye-tracking technology to maintain an optimal 3D image from a range of viewing angles. The 20-inch D2000 (Korean model: DX2000) monitor was developed as a fully functional entertainment display capable of reproducing games, movies and images in all their realistic glory.

“With a full line-up of 3D TVs, laptops, projectors and smartphones, LG Electronics is by far and away the industry leader in all things 3D.” said Si-hwan Park, Vice President of the Monitor Division at LG’s Home Entertainment Company. “LG’s position has always been that 3D will and must eventually function without glasses. The D2000 is a look at what the future has in store.”

The D2000’s 3D effect comes courtesy of glasses-free parallax barrier 3D technology, and the application of the world’s first eye-tracking feature to the monitor. The combination of parallax barrier and eye-tracking in a single unit promises to open up new horizons for glasses-free 3D products.

Existing glasses-free 3D technologies generally require viewers to stay within a tightly restricted angle and distance to perceive the 3D images. However, the D2000 has done much to resolve this issue, allowing viewer much freer movement and more comfortable viewing. Eye tracking in the D2000 works via a special camera sensor attached to the monitor which detects changes in the user’s eye position in real-time. With this information, the monitor calculates the angle and position of the viewer and adjusts the displayed image for the optimal 3D effect.

In addition to playing back existing 3D content, the D2000 has a highly refined 2D to 3D conversion feature which adds a new dimension to existing movies and game playing.

The D2000, available in Korea this month, will be introduced in other markets around the world in the latter part of 2011.

2011-07-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

This video demonstrates the use of Ergoneers Dikablis Eye-Control Module used to interact with a standard LCD TV. The project was carried out in collaboration with Technical University of Munich and reminds me much of an ongoing research project at ITU Copenhagen.

Gliding and Saccadic Gaze Gesture Recognition in Real Time (Rozado, 2011)

2011-07-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

David Rozado with the Department of Neural Computation at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid have developed a neural network approach for detecting gaze gestures in real time. I met David at ITU Copenhagen last summer when he was visiting and discussed this research, I'm happy to see that it came out with such great results. This research was part of Davids Ph.D thesis which focused on Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) neural network which is a bioinspired pattern recognition algorithm. Using a low cost webcam and the ITU Gaze Tracker he is able to recognize ten different gestures with 90% accuracy using raw data. When a fixation detection algorithm and dwell time triggers are employed it is possible to achieve 100% detection rates (at the expense of longer activation times).

Eyetrax webcam eye tracker from Carnegie Mellon

2011-07-01T23:19:00.000-07:00

"Eyetrax is dynamic eye tracking software that uses a simple stationary web camera to detect eye movement. It can be used as a motionless computer interface and is especially useful when working with ALS patients. Additionally, the non-obtrusive nature of the program allows it to work perfectly to discretely generate hotspot maps for marketing purposes". The system is developed by Joseph Fernandez, Skylar Roebuck and Jonathon Smereka and was demonstrated at the Multimedia Computing Demos on May 3rd at Carnegie Mellon.

Utechzone demos

2011-07-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Recently Taiwanese Utechzone demonstrated a little game at Taipei Computex 2011. Strong reminiscent another demo presented by Tobii not too long ago.

Utechzone also demonstrated a driver fatigue detection system which is housed in a smaller formfactor. This system tracks the eye (open/closed) but doesn't perform gaze estimation. The video also shows the underlying gaze tracking system used in their Spring system which appears to have some issues with glasses.

Fast forward to 1 minute in

Mobile gaze-based screen interaction in 3D environments (D. Mardanbeigi, 2011)

2011-06-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

Diako Mardanbeigi presents a method that enables the user to interact with any planar digital display in a 3D environment using a head-mounted eye tracker. An effective method for identifying the screens in the field of view of the user is also presented which can be applied in a general scenario in which multiple users can interact with multiple screens. Diakos PhD project at ITU Copenhagen concerns mobile gaze-based interaction.

Related publication:

Diako Mardanbegi and Dan Witzner Hansen. 2011. Mobile gaze-based screen interaction in 3D environments. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Novel Gaze-Controlled Applications(NGCA '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 2 , 4 pages. PDF/Online

Setscan EyeLock - Law enforcement training system

2011-06-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

Setscan, a Canadian supplier of training equipment for law enforcement and military have partnered with Arrington Research to develop a binocular headmounted system with associated software called Eye Lock. The system aims at evaluating and optimizing officers allocation of visual attention. Looking at the right thing is obviously important as milliseconds count when guns are drawn. The eye tracking system is the same as those used for any natural-scene perception research but the market adaptation and focus to meet the needs of a specific domain is interesting.

UCSF using eye tracking to detect early stages of neurodegeneration

2011-06-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

Sabes Lab at University of California, San Francisco are using high speed eye tracking systems to study eye movements as a tool for detecting neurodegenerative diseases. The data collected including response time, fixation accuracy and saccade velocity. These are important parameters that could identify approaching or existing neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer. This area holds a great market potential and is feasible in a near future as the remote systems are coming closer to meeting the requirements of tracker speed and accuracy.

The EyeHarp: An Eye Tracking Based Musical Instrument

2011-06-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

The main goal of the Zacharias Vamvakousis EyeHarp project is to allow people with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to play music using only their eyes. To build this, Zacharias was inspired by the EyeWriter open source initiative: "...a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus & custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes". Zacharias spent only 50 euros to build his eye tracker using a modified version of the Sony PS3 eye camera. The application is implemented in openframeworks v0.6.

Alternatively, the instrument can be controlled using the mouse pointer (MouseHarp version). Then the free software camera mouse can be used to control the instrument with head movements. Any technology that can take control of the mouse pointer can be used in order to control the instrument. That way the mouseHarp could be an appropriate instrument for many cases of people with physical disabilities. The mouseHarp version is completely independent from the eyeWriter project. Combining the mouseHarp source with the source of the eyeWriter project, we get the eyeHarp! A low-cost gaze controlled musical instrument! Both versions are free and open source.

The EyeHarp project is part of Zacharias master thesis in Sound And Music Computing in UPF, Barcelona. His supervisor is Rafael Ramirez.

A paper on the application has been published:

Vamvakousis Z., Ramirez R. (2011) The Eyeharp: Aa Eye-Tracking-based Musical Instrument. SMC Conference 2011, Padova, Italy (PDF)

Grinbath's EyeGuide

2011-06-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

Texas based Grinbath recently announced the EyeGuide head mounted tracker. It's main competitive advantage is the low cost $1495, academic discounts are available ($1,179). The device captures eye images using a wireless camera, running on three AAA batteries, and streams these to a computer for processing. The package includes basic software for analysis and visualization. See the whitepaper for more information.

Proceedings from Novel Gaze-Controlled Applications 2011 online

2011-06-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

The proceedings from the Novel Gaze-Controlled Applications 2011 conference are now available online. The conference that took place at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden during May 26-27 presented 11 talks covering a wide range of topics from gaming and gaze interaction to eye tracking solutions. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but luckily I'll have a couple of days interesting reading ahead. Kudos to Veronica Sundstedt and Charlotte Sennersten for organizing the event.

Hyakunin-Eyesshu: a tabletop Hyakunin-Isshu game with computer opponent by the action prediction based on gaze detection
Michiya Yamamoto, Munehiro Komeda, Takashi Nagamatsu, Tomio Watanabe
Full text: PDF Online

Gaze and voice controlled drawing
Jan van der Kamp, Veronica Sundstedt
Full text: PDF Online
Eye tracking within the packaging design workflow: interaction with physical and virtual shelves
Chip Tonkin, Andrew D. Ouzts, Andrew T. Duchowski
Full text: PDF Online

Designing gaze-supported multimodal interactions for the exploration of large image collections
Sophie Stellmach, Sebastian Stober, Andreas Nürnberger, Raimund Dachselt
Full text: PDF Online

Comparison of gaze-to-objects mapping algorithms
Oleg Špakov
Full text: PDF Online

Evaluation of a remote webcam-based eye tracker
Henrik Skovsgaard, Javier San Agustin, Sune Alstrup Johansen, John Paulin Hansen, Martin Tall
Full text: PDF Online
An open-source low-cost eye-tracking system for portable real-time and offline tracking
Nicolas Schneider, Peter Bex, Erhardt Barth, Michael Dorr
Full text: PDF Online
Gaze interaction from bed
John Paulin Hansen, Javier San Augustin, Henrik Skovsgaard
Full text: PDF Online
Mobile gaze-based screen interaction in 3D environments
Diako Mardanbegi, Dan Witzner Hansen
Full text: PDF Online
Towards intelligent user interfaces: anticipating actions in computer games
Hendrik Koesling, Alan Kenny, Andrea Finke, Helge Ritter, Seamus McLoone, Tomas Ward
Full text: PDF Online
Exploring interaction modes for image retrieval
Corey Engelman, Rui Li, Jeff Pelz, Pengcheng Shi, Anne Haake
Full text: PDF Online

"Read my Eyes" - A presentation of the ITU Gaze Tracker

2011-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

During the last month the guys at IT University of Copenhagen has been involved in the making of a video that's intended to introduce the ITU Gaze Tracker, an open source eye tracker, to a wider audience. The production has been carried out in collaboration with the Communication Department at the university and features members of the group, students of the HCI class and Birger Bergmann Jeppesen who has had ALS since 1996. Many thanks to all involved, especially Birger & co for taking interest and participating in evaluation of the system.

ITU Gaze Tracker from itucph on Vimeo.
>

1st International Workshop on Pervasive Eye Tracking and Mobile Eye-Based Interaction

2011-05-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

During the UbiComp 2011 in Beijing in September the 1st International Workshop on Pervasive Eye Tracking and Mobile Eye-Based Interaction (PETMEI) will be held. Keynote speaker is Jeff B. Pelz who has considerable experience with eye tracking during natural tasks. The call for paper is out, see details below.

"Recent developments in mobile eye tracking equipment and automated eye movement analysis point the way toward unobtrusive eye-based human-computer interfaces that are pervasively usable in everyday life. We call this new paradigm pervasive eye tracking – continuous eye monitoring and analysis 24/7. The potential applications for the ability to track and analyze eye movements anywhere and anytime call for new research to further develop and understand visual behaviour and eye-based interaction in daily life settings. PETMEI 2011 will focus on pervasive eye tracking as a trailblazer for mobile eye-based interaction and eye-based context-awareness. We provide a forum for researchers from human-computer interaction, context-aware computing, and eye tracking to discuss techniques and applications that go beyond classical eye tracking and stationary eye-based interaction. We want to stimulate and explore the creativity of these communities with respect to the implications, key research challenges, and new applications for pervasive eye tracking in ubiquitous computing. The long-term goal is to create a strong interdisciplinary research community linking these ﬁelds together and to establish the workshop as the premier forum for research on pervasive eye tracking."

Important Dates

Paper Submission: May 30, 2011
Notification of Acceptance: June 27, 2011
Camera-ready due: July 11, 2011
Workshop: September 18, 2011

Topics
Topics of interest cover computational methods, new applications and use cases, as well as eye tracking technology for pervasive eye tracking and mobile eye-based interaction. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Methods

Computer vision tools for face, eye detection and tracking
Pattern recognition/machine learning for gaze and eye movement analysis
Integration of pervasive eye tracking and context-aware computing
Real-time multi-modality sensor fusion
Techniques for eye tracking on portable devices
Methods for long-term gaze and eye movement monitoring and analysis
Gaze modeling for development of conversational agents
Evaluation of context-aware systems and interfaces
User studies on impact of and user experience with pervasive eye tracking
Visual and non-visual feedback for eye-based interfaces
Interaction techniques including multimodal approaches
Analysis and interpretation of attention in HCI
Dual and group eye tracking

Applications

Mobile eye-based interaction with public displays, tabletops, and smart environments
Eye-based activity and context recognition
Pervasive healthcare, e.g. mental health monitoring or rehabilitation
Autism research
Daily life usability studies and market research
Mobile attentive user interfaces
Security and privacy for pervasive eye tracking systems
Eye tracking in automotive research
Eye tracking in multimedia research
Assistive systems, e.g. mobile eye-based text entry
Mobile eye tracking and interaction for augmented and virtual reality
Eye-based human-robot and human-agent interaction
Cognition-aware systems and user interfaces
Human factors in mobile eye-based interaction
Eye movement measures in affective computing

Technologies

New devices for portable and wearable eye tracking
Extension of existing systems for mobile interaction

See the submission details for more information.

GazeGroup's Henrik Skovsgaard wins "Stars with brains" competiton

2011-04-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

During the Danish Research Day 2011 Henrik Skovsgaard, PhD candidate at @ ITU Copenhagen, won the competition "Stars with Brains" (Stjerner med hjerner). Several high profile individuals (stars) were present including the Minister of Science, Princess Marie and Mayor Frank Jensen. The competition consisted of eight doctoral students (brains) from universities across Denmark who presented their research in a layman terms. The audience voted on their favorite candidate using SMS messaging whereby a panel of judges evaluated the participants. Later in the day Henrik was invited to an interview on the Aftenshow on national TV. Henriks research at the IT University of Copenhagen focuses primarily on gaze-based interaction as a communication tool for disabled and have participated in the development of the Gazegroup.org software. A big congrats to Henrik for the award, excellent public outreach and associated stardom!

PhD student Henrik Skovsgaard won the "Stars with brains". Photo: Tariq Mikkel Khan (source)

From right: Mayor Frank Jensen, HRH Princess Marie and Minister of Science Charlotte Sahl-Madsen. Photo: Tariq Mikkel Khan (source)

Specs for SMI GazeWear released

2011-04-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

The specifications for the SMI GazeWear has just been announced. The head mounted tracker takes the shape of a pair of glasses and has a impressive set of features. It offers 30Hz binocular tracking (both eyes) at 0.5 deg accuracy with automatic parallax compensation for accurate gaze estimation over distances above 40cm. The dark pupil, corneal reflection based system has a tracking range of 70° horizontal / 55°. vertical angle. SMI has managed to squeeze in a HD scene camera located in the center of the frame which offers 1280x960 resolution at 30 frames per second. However, the viewing angle is slightly smaller than the tracking range at 63° horizontal and 41° vertical angle. The weight of the device is specified to 75 grams with the dimensions of 173x58x168mm (w/h/d) and is estimated to fit subjects above age 7.

SMI GazeWear

A mobile recording unit is offered which stores data on a SD card, weighs 420 grams, and has minimum of 40 minutes recording time. However, a subnotebook can be used to extend recording time towards two hours.

With the new tracker SMI seriously improves their offering in the head mounted segment with a form factor that certainly appears more attractive to a wide range of applications. The specs stands up well against the Tobii glasses which has a similar form but is limited to monocular tracking and a lower resolution scene camera. No details on availability is provided other than "coming soon", something we heard since late December. Once they are out the game is on.

The flyer may be downloaded as pdf.

Development of a head-mounted, eye-tracking system for dogs (Williams et al, 2011)

2011-04-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Fiona Williams, Daniel Milss and Kun Guo at the University of Lincoln have developed a head mounted eye tracking system for our four legged friends. Using a special construct based on a head strap and a muzzle the device was mounted on the head of the dog where a dichroic mirror placed in front of one of the eyes reflects the IR image back to the camera.

The device was adapted from a VisionTrack system by IScan/Polhemus and contains two miniature cameras, one for the eye and one for the scene which is connected to a host workstation. When used with human subject such setup provides 0.3 deg. of accuracy according to the manufacturer. Williams et al obtained an accuracy of 2-3 deg. from a single dog when using a special calibration method containing five points located on a cross which was mounted at the tip of the muzzle. Using positive reenforcement the dog was gradually trained to wear and fixate targets which I'm sure wasn't an easy task.

Abstract:
Growing interest in canine cognition and visual perception has promoted research into the allocation of visual attention during free-viewing tasks in the dog. The techniques currently available to study this (i.e. preferential looking) have, however, lacked spatial accuracy, permitting only gross judgements of the location of the dog’s point of gaze and are limited to a laboratory setting. Here we describe a mobile, head-mounted, video-based, eye-tracking system and a procedure for achieving standardised calibration allowing an output with accuracy of 2–3◦. The setup allows free movement of dogs; in addition the procedure does not involve extensive training skills, and is completely non-invasive. This apparatus has the potential to allow the study of gaze patterns in a variety of research applications and could enhance the study of areas such as canine vision, cognition and social interactions.

Fiona J. Williams, Daniel S. Mills, Kun Guo, Development of a head-mounted, eye-tracking system for dogs, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Volume 194, Issue 2, 15 January 2011, Pages 259-265, ISSN 0165-0270, DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2010.10.022. (available from ScienceDirect)

Fraunhofer CMOS-OLED Headmounted display with integrated eye tracker

2011-04-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

"The Fraunhofer IPMS works on the integration of sensors and microdisplays on CMOS backplane for several years now. For example the researchers have developed a bidirectional microdisplay, which could be used in Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) for gaze triggered augmented-reality (AR) aplications. The chips contain both an active OLED matrix and therein integrated photodetectors. The combination of both matrixes in one chip is an essential possibility for system integrators to design smaller, lightweight and portable systems with both functionalities." (Press release)

"Rigo Herold, PhD student at Fraunhofer IPMS and participant of the development team, declares: This unique device enables the design of a new generation of small AR-HMDs with advanced functionality. The OLED microdisplay based Eyetracking HMD enables the user on the one hand to overlay the view of the real world with virtual contents, for example to watch videos at jog. And on the other hand the user can select the next video triggered only by his gaze without using his hands." (Press release)

Sensor integrates both OLED display and CMOS imaging sensor.

Rigo Herold will present the system at the SID 2011 exhibitor forum at May 17, 2011 4:00 p.m.: Eyecatcher: The Bi-Directional OLED Microdisplay with the following specs:

Monochrome
Special Eyetracking-Algorithm for HMDs based on bidirectional microdisplays
Front brightness: > 1500 cd/m²

Poster was presented at ISSCC 2011 : Industry Demonstration Session (IDS). Click to enlarge

In addition there is a paper titled "Bidirectional OLED microdisplay: Combining display and image sensor functionality into a monolithic CMOS chip" published with the following abstract:.

"Microdisplays based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) achieve high optical performance with excellent contrast ratio and large dynamic range at low power consumption. The direct light emission from the OLED enables small devices without additional backlight, making them suitable for mobile near-to-eye (NTE) applications such as viewfinders or head-mounted displays (HMD). In these applications the microdisplay acts typically as a purely unidirectional output device [1–3]. With the integration of an additional image sensor, the functionality of the microdisplay can be extended to a bidirectional optical input/output device. The major aim is the implementation of eye-tracking capabilities in see-through HMD applications to achieve gaze-based human-display-interaction." Available at IEEE Xplore.

AutomotiveUI'11 - 3rd International Conference On Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

2011-04-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

"In-car interactive technology is becoming ubiquitous and cars are increasingly connected to the outside world. Drivers and passengers use this technology because it provides valuable services. Some technology, such as collision warning systems, assists drivers in performing their primary in-vehicle task (driving). Other technology provides information on myriad subjects or offers entertainment to the driver and passengers.

The challenge that arises from the proliferation of in-car devices is that they may distract drivers from the primary task of driving, with possibly disastrous results. Thus, one of the major goals of this conference is to explore ways in which in-car user interfaces can be designed so as to lessen driver distraction while still enabling valuable services. This is challenging, especially given that the design of in-car devices, which was historically the responsibility of car manufacturers and their parts suppliers, is now a responsibility shared among a large and ever-changing group of parties. These parties include car OEMs, Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers of factory-installed electronics, as well as the manufacturers of hardware and software that is brought into the car, for example on personal navigation devices, smartphones, and tablets.

As we consider driving safety, our focus in designing in-car user interfaces should not be purely on eliminating distractions. In-car user interfaces also offer the opportunity to improve the driver¹s performance, for example by increasing her awareness of upcoming hazards. They can also enhance the experience of all kinds of passengers in the car. To this end, a further goal of AutomotiveUI 2011 is the exploration of in-car interfaces that address the varying needs of different types of users (including disabled drivers, elderly drivers or passengers, and the users of rear-seat entertainment systems). Overall our goal is to advance the state of the art in vehicular user experiences, in order to make cars both safer and more enjoyable places to spend time." http://www.auto-ui.org

Topics include, but are not limited to:
* new concepts for in-car user interfaces
* multimodal in-car user interfaces
* in-car speech and audio user interfaces
* text input and output while driving
* multimedia interfaces for in-car entertainment
* evaluation and benchmarking of in-car user interfaces
* assistive technology in the vehicular context
* methods and tools for automotive user interface research
* development methods and tools for automotive user interfaces
* automotive user interface frameworks and toolkits
* detecting and estimating user intentions
* detecting/measuring driver distraction and estimating cognitive load
* biometrics and physiological sensors as a user interface component
* sensors and context for interactive experiences in the car
* user interfaces for information access (search, browsing, etc.) while driving
* user interfaces for navigation or route guidance
* applications and user interfaces for inter-vehicle communication
* in-car gaming and entertainment
* different user groups and user group characteristics
* in-situ studies of automotive user interface approaches
* general automotive user experience research
* driving safety research using real vehicles and simulators
* subliminal techniques for workload reduction

SUBMISSIONS
AutomotiveUI 2011 invites submissions in the following categories:

* Papers (Submission Deadline: July 11th, 2011)
* Workshops (Submission Deadline: July 25th, 2011)
* Posters & Interactive Demos (Submission Deadline: Oct. 10th, 2011)
* Industrial Showcase (Submission Deadline: Oct. 10th, 2011)

For more information on the submission categories please check http://www.auto-ui.org/11/submit.php

FaceAPI signs licence deal with Chinese SuperD

2011-04-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Remember the glasses-free 3D displays demonstrated earlier this year at CES2011? Seeing Machines recently announced a production licence deal with Chinese Shenzhen Super Perfect Optics Limited (SuperD). The two companies have been working together for the last 12 months and the first consumer products are expected to be available during the summer. Big ambition, millions of devices including laptops, monitors and all-in-one-PCs by big name manufacturers. Interesting development as they know eye tracking too, please make that happen. Press release available here.

SMI iView X SDK 3.0 released

2011-04-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

SMI just released version 3.0 of their Software Development Kit (SDK) which contains low and high level functions, documentation and sample code (matlab, e-prime, c/c++, Python and C#). The SDK supports Windows XP, Vista and 7 (both 32 and 64 bit). Available by for free for existing customers. Good news for developers, especially the 64-bit version for Windows 7. Releasing extensive and well documented SDKs for free is a trend that has been adopted by most manufacturers by now, it just makes perfect sense.

Tobii PCEye

2011-04-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today Tobii Technologies introduced their PCEye eye tracker which demonstrates their ambition for the PC market. It is a stand-alone product that is attached to the monitor using a standard VESA mount supports screens of 15-22". The hardware is built on the IS platform which uses embedded components to perform the image processing. This was also used in the Tobii+Lenovo laptop prototype demonstrated at CEBIT2011.

The benefit of an embedded processing unit is the reduced CPU consumption of the host PC, however, this might not be a very demanding task for modern computers. Although the current version supports Windows only, an additional benefit of the embedded processing is that it offers some degree of platform independence. All that is needed to support another platform is a implementation of the protocol for the host (aka drivers). The manual states the a tracking speed of 30Hz and an accuracy of 0.8 degrees of visual angle. These are relatively low values compared to the previous models from the same company and others used in usability and research. They certainly could deliver more bang for the buck but it's a tricky situation to differentiate the products, hence the PCEye is limited in order not to compete with the professional offering. At the end of the day it might be fast enough for plain mouse control or assistive communication software. The track box is relatively large at 40x30x20cm with an optimal working distance of 50-80cm. Judging by the design and packaging Tobii is advancing on a consumer eye tracking with a device that potentially could be manufactured in large volumes (the hardware is not all different from a Kinect). This is also apparent in the press release where the product is targeting a larger range of assistive technology users, and for the first time disabled gamers. Now that's an interesting direction to push the technology. If it works there it will probably work for ordinary gamers as well which is a segment known to be early adopters and often willing to pay up to stay on top. Current pricing? Not officially announced but rumor say ~$7000. Still a large chunk of change for any sole individual but at least it's heading in the right direction.

Nice packaging. Aiming at retail down the road?

What's in the box? Device, power plug, cable and mounting bracket. Consumer friendly. Unfortunately not all new monitors have VESA mounts, especially in the lower segment.

Update: Price confirmed to $6900.

Mirametrix acquired by TandemLaunch Technologies

2011-03-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

MONTREAL (Quebec), February 18, 2011 – TandemLaunch Technologies today announced that it has completed the acquisition of all assets and staff of Vancouver-based Mirametrix Research Inc., a privately held provider of gaze tracking technology. Mirametrix is a technology company offering affordable gaze tracking systems for application in vision research and content analytics. The technology acquired through Mirametrix complements TandemLaunch’s consumer gaze tracking portfolio. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Mirametrix is an innovative small company that has successfully introduced gaze tracking solutions for cost-competitive applications. TandemLaunch offers the resources to scale the Mirametrix business and ultimately bring gaze tracking into the consumer market” said Helge Seetzen, CEO of TandemLaunch.

The website has been updated revealing the new executive team, product offering appears to remain the same for the time being. Helge Seetzen (blog) is an entrepreneur who sold his previous company, BrightSide, to Dolby Technologies for ~$30 million which he invested into the TandemLaunch incubator which focuses on early stages in technology development with the aim bring in industry partners to acquire the technology for further commercialization (interview).

Congrats to Craig Hennessey, founder of Mirametrix, who is now well on his way to commercialize his PhD research (1, 2) on remote eye tracking based on a single camera setup, bright pupil and corneal reflections. It will be interesting to see how additional resources backing the operation will affects the industry and what role an affordable but perhaps less accurate system has to play. The latter can be improved upon but what about the market, will an affordable system expand or create new segments? From the top of my head, Yes. Time will tell..

EyeTech Digital Systems @ GDC2011

2011-03-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Valve Eye Controlled Portal 2

2011-03-06T23:45:00.000-08:00

Source PCGamer.

CUShop concept @ Clemson University

2011-03-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

"Clemson University architecture students are working with the packaging science department in designing an eye tracking lab to be a fully immersive grocery store shopping experience. This concept explores the entrance into the lab through a vestibule space created by two sliding glass doors, mimicking the space found in many grocery stores."

Accurate eye center localisation for low-cost eye tracking

2011-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

Fabian Timm from the Lübeck University Institute for Neuro and Bioinformatics demonstrate a "novel approach for accurate localisation of the eye centres (pupil) in real time. In contrast to other approaches, we neither employ any kind of machine learning nor a model scheme - we just compute dot products! Our method computes very accurate estimations and can therefore be used in real world applications such as eye (gaze) tracking." Sounds great, any ideas on gaze estimation and accuracy?

Head-mounted eye-tracking application for driving

2011-03-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Schneider have for his masters thesis modified the ITU Gaze Tracker for eye tracking in an automotive setting. It incorporates a scene camera and software that calibrates and integrates it in the platform. The project was carried out at Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard and there is a good chance it will be released open source. A fine piece of work and an awesome addition to the framework. We're impressed by the results. More info to follow, for now enjoy this video.

Nicolas Schneider, Peter Bex, Erhardt Barth, and Michael Dorr. 2011. An open-source low-cost eye-tracking system for portable real-time and offline tracking. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Novel Gaze-Controlled Applications (NGCA '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 8 , 4 pages. (Full text: PDF Online)

Tobii certainly hit the fan today

2011-03-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

News outlets and geeks all dig into the hype. Good job. Engadget, Crunchgear, PCPro, PopSci, Wired UK, CBSNews, USA Today, The Inquirer, PC World, Washington Times etc. etc.

Tobii + Lenovo = Eye tracking laptop

2011-03-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Today at Cebit 2011 Tobii Technology announced a collaboration with Lenovo and introduced a gaze enabled laptop. It has been manufactured in 20 units which are split between the two. The prototype illustrates a concept which is said to be two years from a consumer product. In essence it seems to be a custom integration of their IS platform which is an embedded OEM solution that provides 0.5 degrees of accuracy at 30-40Hz within a track-box of 40x30cm at 60cm distance from the screen. Considering the media buzz it has received today it clearly will attract systems builders but there are several issues that needs to be resolved before we see it in everyday computers. Power consumption of 5W is a challenge for battery operated laptops. Tolerance to ambient illumination is another. Furthermore, it needs to be further miniaturized which can be problematic as the sensor and lenses needs to large enough to provide decent performance. Overall, a nice attention grabber which brings Tobii closer to the holy grail of an eye tracker in every computer. Go Tobii.

A self-calibrating, camera-based eye tracker for the recording of rodent eye movements (Zoccolan et al, 2010)

2011-02-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

Came across an interesting methods article in "Frontiers in Neuroscience" published in late November last year which involves the development of a fully automated eye tracking system which is calibrated without requiring co-operation from the subject. This is done by fixing the location of the eye and moving the camera to establish a geometric model (also see Stahl et al, 2000, 2004). Apparently they attempted to use a commercial EyeLink II device first but found it not suitable for rodent eye tracking due to thresholding implementation, illumination conditions and failing corneal reflection tracking when the rodent was chewing. So the authors built their own solution using a Prosilica camera and a set of algorithms (depicted below). Read the paper for implementation details. I find it to be a wonderful piece of work, different from human eye tracking for sure but still relevant and fascinating.

Schematic diagram of the eye-tracking system

Illustration of the algorithm to track the eye’s pupil and corneal

reflection spot.

Eye coordinate system and measurements

Horizontal and vertical alignment of the eye with the center of

the camera’s sensor.

Abstract:

"Much of neurophysiology and vision science relies on careful measurement of a human or animal subject’s gaze direction. Video-based eye trackers have emerged as an especially popular option for gaze tracking, because they are easy to use and are completely non-invasive. However, video eye trackers typically require a calibration procedure in which the subject must look at a series of points at known gaze angles. While it is possible to rely on innate orienting behaviors for calibration in some non-human species, other species, such as rodents, do not reliably saccade to visual targets, making this form of calibration impossible. To overcome this problem, we developed a fully automated infrared video eye-tracking system that is able to quickly and accurately calibrate itself without requiring co-operation from the subject. This technique relies on the optical geometry of the cornea and uses computer-controlled motorized stages to rapidly estimate the geometry of the eye relative to the camera. The accuracy and precision of our system was carefully measured using an artificial eye, and its capability to monitor the gaze of rodents was verified by tracking spontaneous saccades and evoked oculomotor reflexes in head-fixed rats (in both cases, we obtained measurements that are consistent with those found in the literature). Overall, given its fully automated nature and its intrinsic robustness against operator errors, we believe that our eye-tracking system enhances the utility of existing approaches to gaze-tracking in rodents and represents a valid tool for rodent vision studies."

Zoccolan DF, Graham BJ, Cox DD (2010) A self-calibrating, camera-based eye tracker for the recording of rodent eye movements. Frontiers in Neuroscience Methods. doi:10.3389/fnins.2010.00193 [link]

EyeTech Digital Systems

2011-02-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Arizona-based EyeTech Digital Systems offers several interesting eye trackers where the new V1 caught my attention with its extended track-box of 25 x 18 x 50cm. The rather large depth range is provided through a custom auto focus mechanism developed in cooperation with Brigham Young University Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. This makes the device particularly suitable for larger displays such as public displays/digital signage, still the I'd imaging the calibration procedure to remain, ideally you'd want to walk up and interact/collect data automatically without any wizards or intervention. In any case, a larger trackbox is always welcome and it certainly opens up new opportunities. EyeTechs V1 offers 20cm more than most.

Spring eye tracker in action

2011-02-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

More videos of the Spring eye tracker is available at the company website.

Gaze-based "Asteroids"

2011-01-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Came across this little game today, a gaze based version of the classic Asteroids game, objective is simple; target the incoming asteroids before impact.

Taiwanese Utechzone, the Spring gaze interaction system

2011-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

UTechZone a Taiwanese company have launched the Spring gaze interaction system for individuals with ALS or similar conditions. It provides the basic functionality including text entry, email, web, media etc. in a format that reminds much of the MyTobii software. The tracker can be mounted in various ways including wheelchairs and desks with the accessories. A nice feature is the built in TV tuner which is accessible through the gaze interface. The performance of the actual tracking system and accuracy in gaze estimation is unknown, only specified to a 7x4 grid. Track-box is specified to 17cm x 10cm x 15cm with a working range of 55-70 cm.

The system runs on Windows XP and a computer equipped with an Intel Dual Core CPU, 2GB RAM, a 500GB HD combined with a 17" monitor.
Supported languages are Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English and Japanese. All countries with pretty big markets. Price unknown but probably less than a Tobii. Get the product brochure (pdf).

Call for papers: UBICOMM 2011

2011-01-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

"The goal of the International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies, UBICOMM 2011, is to bring together researchers from the academia and practitioners from the industry in order to address fundamentals of ubiquitous systems and the new applications related to them. The conference will provide a forum where researchers shall be able to present recent research results and new research problems and directions related to them. The conference seeks contributions presenting novel research in all aspects of ubiquitous techniques and technologies applied to advanced mobile applications." All tracks/topics are open to both research and industry contributions. More info.
Tracks:

Fundamentals
Mobility
Information Ubiquity
Ubiquitous Multimedia Systems and Processing
Wireless Technologies
Web Services
Ubiquitous networks
Ubiquitous devices and operative systems
Ubiquitous mobile services and protocols
Ubiquitous software and security
Collaborative ubiquitous systems
User and applications

Deadlines:

Submission (full paper) June 20, 2011
Notification July 31, 2011
Registration August 15, 2011
Camera ready August 20, 2011

Face tracking for 3D displays without glasses.

2011-01-13T06:53:00.000-08:00

A number of manufacturers and research institutes have presented 3D display systems that utilizes real time face and eye region tracking in order to adjust the stereoscopic display in real time. This means that viewers doesn't have to wear any funky glasses to see the 3D content which has been a limiting factor for these displays. Some prototypes and OEM solutions were introduced at CEBIT last year. At CES2011 Toshiba presented a 3D equipped laptop that uses the built-in webcam to track the position of the users face (appears to be built around Seeingmachines faceAPI). It's an interesting development, we're seeing more and more of computer vision applications in the consumer space, recently Microsoft announced that they've sold 8 million Kinect devices in the first 60 days while Sony shipped 4.1 million Playstation Move in the first two months.

3D displays sans glasses at CEBIT2010

Toshibas 3D laptop sans glasses at CES2011.

Obviously, these systems differ from eye tracking systems but still share many concepts. So whats the limiting factor for consumer eye tracking then? 1) Lack of applications, there isn't a clear compelling reason for most consumers to get an eye tracker. It has to provide a new experience with a clear advantage and value. Doing something faster, easier or in a way that couldn't be done before. 2) Expensive hardware, they are professional devices manufactured in low volume with the use of high quality, expensive components 3) No guarantees, doesn't work for all customers in all environments. How do you sell something that only works under specific conditions for say 90% of the customers?

Eye HDR: gaze-adaptive system for displaying high-dynamic-range images (Rahardja et al)

2011-01-13T06:20:00.000-08:00

"How can high dynamic range (HDR) images like those captured by human vision be most effectively reproduced? Susanto Rahardja, head of the Signal Processing Department at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), hit upon the idea of simulating the human brain’s mechanism for HDR vision. “We thought about developing a dynamic display system that could naturally and interactively adapt as the user’s eyes move around a scene, just as the human visual system changes as our eyes move around a real scene,” he says.

Two years ago, Rahardja initiated a program on HDR display bringing together researchers with a vriety of backgrounds. “We held a lot of brainstorming sessions to discuss how the human visual system perceives various scenes with different levels of brightness,” says Farzam Farbiz, a senior research fellow of the Signal Processing Department. They also read many books on cerebral physiology to understand how receptors in the retina respond to light and convert the data into electric signals, which are then transmitted to retinal ganglion cells and other neural cells through complex pathways in the visual cortex.

The EyeHDR system employs a commercial eye-tracker device that follows the viewer’s eyes and records the eyes’ reflection patterns. Using this data, the system calculates and determines the exact point of the viewer’s gaze on the screen using special ‘neural network’ algorithms the team has developed.

“On top of that, we also had to simulate the transitional latency of human eyes,” says Corey Manders, a senior research fellow of the Signal Processing Department. “When you move your gaze from a dark part of the room to a bright window, our eyes take a few moments to adjust before we can see clearly what’s outside,” adds Zhiyong Huang, head of the Computer Graphics and Interface Department. “This is our real natural experience, and our work is to reproduce this on-screen.”

The EyeHDR system calculates the average luminance of the region where the observer is gazing, and adjusts the intensity and contrast to optimal levels with a certain delay, giving the viewer the impression of a real scene. The system also automatically tone-maps the HDR images to low dynamic range (LDR) images in regions outside of the viewers gaze. Ultimately, the EyeHDR system generates multiple images in response to the viewer’s gaze, which contrasts with previous attempts to achieve HDR through the generation of a single, perfect HDR display image.

Eye HDR from Christian Bloch on Vimeo.

The researchers say development of the fundamental technologies for the system is close to complete, and the EyeHDR system’s ability to display HDR images on large LDR screens has been confirmed. But before the system can become commercially available, the eye-tracking devices will need to be made more accurate, robust and easier to use. As the first step toward commercialization, the team demonstrated the EyeHDR system at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, an annual international conference and exhibition on digital content, held in Yokohama, Japan in December last year.

Although the team’s work is currently focused on static images, they have plans for video. “We would like to apply our technologies for computer gaming and other moving images in the future. We are also looking to reduce the realism gap between real and virtual scenes in emergency response simulation, architecture and science,” Farbiz says". (source)

Susanto Rahardja, Farzam Farbiz, Corey Manders, Huang Zhiyong, Jamie Ng Suat Ling, Ishtiaq Rasool Khan, Ong Ee Ping, and Song Peng. 2009. Eye HDR: gaze-adaptive system for displaying high-dynamic-range images. In ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Art Gallery & Emerging Technologies: Adaptation (SIGGRAPH ASIA '09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 68-68. DOI=10.1145/1665137.1665187. (pdf, it's a one page poster)

Call for papers: ACIVS 2011

2011-01-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Acivs 2011 is a conference focusing on techniques for building adaptive, intelligent, safe and secure imaging systems. Acivs 2011 consists of four days of lecture sessions, both regular (25 mns) and invited presentations, poster sessions. The conference will take place in the Het Pand, Ghent, Belgium on Aug. 22-25 2011.

Topics

Vision systems, including multi-camera systems
Image and Video Processing (linear/non-linear filtering and enhancement, restoration, segmentation, wavelets and multiresolution, Markovian techniques, color processing, modeling, analysis, interpolation and spatial transforms, motion, fractals and multifractals, structure from motion, information geometry)
Pattern Analysis (shape analysis, data and image fusion, pattern matching, neural nets, learning, grammatical techniques) and Content-Based Image Retrieval
Remote Sensing (techniques for filtering, enhancing, compressing, displaying and analyzing optical, infrared, radar, multi- and hyperspectral airborne and spaceborne images)
Still Image and Video Coding and Transmission (still image/video coding, model-based coding, synthetic/natural hybrid coding, quality metrics, image and video protection, image and video databases, image search and sorting, video indexing, multimedia applications)
System Architecture and Performance Evaluation (implementation of algorithms, GPU implementation, benchmarking, evaluation criteria, algorithmic evaluation)

Proceedings

The proceedings of Acivs 2011 will be published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. LNCS is published, in parallel to the printed books, in full-text electronic form via Springer Verlag's internet platform

Deadlines

February 11, 2011

Full paper submission

April 15, 2011

Notification of acceptance

May 15, 2011

Camera-ready papers due

May 15, 2011

Registration deadline for authors of accepted papers

June 30, 2011

Early registration deadline

Aug. 22-25 2011

Acivs 2011

Santa's been spotted - Introducing the SMI Glasses

2010-12-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

What a year it has been in the commercial eye tracking domain. In June we had the Tobii glasses which was their entry into the head-mounted market which created some buzz online. This was followed by a high-speed remote system, the Tobii TX300, which was introduced in November. Both products competed directly with the offering from SMI which countered with the RED500 remote tracker, surpassing the Tobii system by 200 samples per second. Today it's my pleasure to introduce the SMI Glasses which brings up the competition a couple of notches. Being comparable in the neat, unobtrusive form factor they provide binocular tracking with a direct view of both eyes.

Rendered image of the upcoming SMI Glasses.

The small scene camera is located in the center of glasses which gives minimal parallax. Although the hard specs has yet to be released it is rumored to have a high resolution scene camera, long battery lifetime and an advanced IR AOA marker detection system which enables automatic mapping of gaze data to real-world objects. Furthermore, they can be used not only as blackbox system – but may be integrated with SMIs current head mounted devices, including live view, open interface for co-registration etc. Estimated availability is projected to the first half of 2011.

Thanks for all the hard work, inspiration and feedback throughout 2010, it's been an amazing year. By the looks of it 2011 appears to be a really interesting year for eye tracking. I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Method for Automatic Mapping of Eye Tracker Data to Hypermedia Content

2010-12-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

Came across the United States Patent Application 20100295774 which has been filed by Craig Hennessey of Mirametrix. Essentially the system creates Regions Of Interest based on the HTML code (div-tags) to do an automatic mapping between gaze X&Y and the location of elements. This is done by accessing the Microsoft Document Object Model of an Intenet Explorer browser page to establish the "content tracker", a piece of software that generates the list of areas, their sizes and location on-screen which then are tagged with keywords (e.g logo, ad etc) This software will also keep track of several browser windows, their position and interaction state.

"A system for automatic mapping of eye-gaze data to hypermedia content utilizes high-level content-of-interest tags to identify regions of content-of-interest in hypermedia pages. User's computers are equipped with eye-gaze tracker equipment that is capable of determining the user's point-of-gaze on a displayed hypermedia page. A content tracker identifies the location of the content using the content-of-interest tags and a point-of-gaze to content-of-interest linker directly maps the user's point-of-gaze to the displayed content-of-interest. A visible-browser-identifier determines which browser window is being displayed and identifies which portions of the page are being displayed. Test data from plural users viewing test pages is collected, analyzed and reported."

To conclude the idea is to have multiple clients equipped with eye trackers that communicates with a server. The central machine coordinates studies and stores the gaze data from each session (in the cloud?). Overall a strategy that makes perfect sense if your differentiating factor is low-cost.

SMI RED500

2010-11-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

Just days after the Tobii TX300 was launched SMI counters with the introduction of the the worlds first 500Hz remote binocular eye tracker. SMI seriously ramps up the competition in the high speed remote systems, surpassing the Tobii TX by a hefty 200Hz. The RED500 has a operating distance of 60-80cm with a 40x40 trackbox at 70cm with a reported accuracy of <0.4 degrees under typical (optimal?) settings. Real-world performance evaluation by independent third party remains to be seen. Not resting on their laurels SMI regains the king-of-the-hill position with an impressive achievement that demonstrates how competitive the field has become. See the technical specs for more information.

Exploring the potential of context-sensitive CADe in screening mammography (Tourassi et al, 2010)

2010-11-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

Georgia D. Tourassi, Maciej A. Mazurowski, and Brian P. Harrawood at Duke University Ravin Advanced Imaging Laboratories in collaboration with Elizabeth A. Krupinski presents a novel method of combining eye gaze data with Computer-Assisted Detection algorithms to improve detection rates for malignant masses in mammography. This contextualized method holds a potential for personalized diagnostic support.

Purpose: Conventional computer-assisted detection CADe systems in screening mammography provide the same decision support to all users. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of a context-sensitive CADe system which provides decision support guided by each user’s focus of attention during visual search and reporting patterns for a specific case.

Methods: An observer study for the detection of malignant masses in screening mammograms was conducted in which six radiologists evaluated 20 mammograms while wearing an eye-tracking device. Eye-position data and diagnostic decisions were collected for each radiologist and case they reviewed. These cases were subsequently analyzed with an in-house knowledge-based CADe system using two different modes: conventional mode with a globally fixed decision threshold and context-sensitive mode with a location-variable decision threshold based on the radiologists’ eye dwelling data and reporting information.

Results: The CADe system operating in conventional mode had 85.7% per-image malignant mass sensitivity at 3.15 false positives per image FPsI . The same system operating in context-sensitive mode provided personalized decision support at 85.7%–100% sensitivity and 0.35–0.40 FPsI to all six radiologists. Furthermore, context-sensitive CADe system could improve the radiologists’ sensitivity and reduce their performance gap more effectively than conventional CADe.

Conclusions: Context-sensitive CADe support shows promise in delineating and reducing the radiologists’ perceptual and cognitive errors in the diagnostic interpretation of screening mammograms more effectively than conventional CADe.

G. D. Tourassi, M. A. Mazurowski, B. P. Harrawood and E. A. Krupinski, "Exploring the potential of context-sensitive CADe in screening mammography," Medical Physics 37, 5728-5736. Online, PDF.

Tobii TX300

2010-11-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Swedish eye tracking manufacturer Tobii just announced the TX300 standalone remote tracker which as the name suggests provides 300Hz binocular gaze data with a reported 0.4 degrees accuracy under ideal conditions. Furthermore, the tolerance for head movements has been improved allowing up to 50cm/second (sideways) and a 37x17cm trackbox at 65cm. As always, the accuracy varies depending on where the eyes are located in relation to the camera. Specifications can be found in the technical leaflet but at the end of the day an external third party evaluation using a standardized methodology is what counts (looking forward to the white paper). The tracker is primarily targeting research applications and likely to be priced accordingly. With the TX300 Tobii is stepping up presence in academia with faster trackers, research papers database and the EyeQ newsletter. Previously the SMI IViewX RED 250, which was introduced in July 2009, was king of the hill. However, SMI has never been known to rest on their laurels. Game is on and these are exciting times.

Additional information available here.

GazeCom and SMI demonstrates automotive guidance system

2010-11-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

"In order to determine the effectiveness of gaze guidance, within the project, SMI developed an experimental driving simulator with integrated eye tracking technology. A driving safety study in a city was set up and testing in that environment has shown that the number of accidents was significantly lower with gaze guidance than without, while most of the drivers didn’t consciously notice the guiding visual cues."

Christian Villwock, Director for Eye and Gaze Tracking Systems at SMI: “We have shown that visual performance can significantly be improved by gaze contingent gaze guidance. This introduces huge potential in applications where expert knowledge has to be transferred or safety is critical, for example for radiological image analysis.”

Within the GazeCom project, funded by the EU within the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) program, the impact of gaze guidance on what is perceived and communicated effectively has been determined in a broad range of tasks of varying complexity. This included basic research in the understanding of visual perception and brain function up to the level where the guidance of gaze becomes feasible." (source)

Deloitte interview with Tobii co-founder John Elvesjö (in Swedish)

2010-11-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

SMI Releases iViewX 2.5

2010-11-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today SensoMotoric Instruments released a new version of their iViewX software which offers a number of fixes and software improvements. Download here.

Improvements
- NEW device: MEG 250
- RED5: improved tracking stability
- RED: improved pupil diameter calculation
- RED: improved distance measurement
- RED: improved 2 and 5 point calibration model
- file transfer server is installed with iView X now
- added configurable parallel port address

Fixes
- RED5 camera drop outs in 60Hz mode on Clevo Laptop
- initializes LPT_IO and PIODIO on startup correctly
- RED standalone mode can be used with all calibration methods via remote commands
- lateral offset in RED5 head position visualization
- HED: Use TimeStamp in [ms] as Scene Video Overlay
- improved rejection parameters for NNL Devices
- crash when using ET_CAL in standalone mode
- strange behaviour with ET_REM and eT_REM. Look up in command list is now case-insensitive.
- RED5: Default speed is 60Hz for RED and 250Hz for RED250
- and many more small fixes and improvements

Optimization and Dynamic Simulation of a Parallel Three Degree-of-Freedom Camera Orientation System (T. Villgrattner, 2010)

2010-11-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

Moving a camera 2500 degrees per second is such an awesome accomplishment that I cannot help myself, shamelessly long quote from IEEE Spectrum:

German researchers have developed a robotic camera that mimics the motion of real eyes and even moves at superhuman speeds. The camera system can point in any direction and is also capable of imitating the fastest human eye movements, which can reach speeds of 500 degrees per second. But the system can also move faster than that, achieving more than 2500 degrees per second. It would make for very fast robot eyes. Led by Professor Heinz Ulbrich at the Institute of Applied Mechanics at theTechnische Universität München, a team of researchers has been working on superfast camera orientation systems that can reproduce the human gaze.

In many experiments in psychology, human-computer interaction, and other fields, researchers want to monitor precisely what subjects are looking at. Gaze can reveal not only what people are focusing their attention on but it also provides clues about their state of mind and intentions. Mobile systems to monitor gaze include eye-tracking software and head-mounted cameras. But they're not perfect; sometimes they just can't follow a person's fast eye movements, and sometimes they provide ambiguous gaze information.

In collaboration with their project partners from the Chair for Clinical Neuroscience, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Dr. Erich Schneider, and Professor Thomas Brand the Munich team, which is supported in part by the CoTeSys Cluster, is developing a system to overcome those limitations. The system, propped on a person's head, uses a custom made eye-tracker to monitor the person's eye movements. It then precisely reproduces those movements using a superfast actuator-driven mechanism with yaw, pitch, and roll rotation, like a human eyeball. When the real eye move, the robot eye follows suit.

The engineers at the Institute of Applied Mechanics have been working on the camera orientation system over the past few years. Their previous designs had 2 degrees of freedom (DOF). Now researcher Thomas Villgrattner is presenting a system that improves on the earlier versions and features not 2 but 3 DOF. He explains that existing camera-orientation systems with 3 DOF that are fast and lightweight rely on model aircraft servo actuators. The main drawback of such actuators is that they can introduce delays and require gear boxes.

So Villgrattner sought a different approach. Because this is a head-mounted device, it has to be lightweight and inconspicuous -- you don't want it rattling and shaking on the subject's scalp. Which actuators to use? The solution consists of an elegant parallel system that uses ultrasonic piezo actuators. The piezos transmit their movement to a prismatic joint, which in turns drives small push rods attached to the camera frame. The rods have spherical joints on either end, and this kind of mechanism is known as a PSS, or prismatic, spherical, spherical, chain. It's a "quite nice mechanism," says Masaaki Kumagai, a mechanical engineering associate professor at Tohoku Gakuin University, in Miyagi, Japan, who was not involved in the project. "I can't believe they made such a high speed/acceleration mechanism using piezo actuators."

The advantage is that it can reach high speeds and accelerations with small actuators, which remain on a stationary base, so they don't add to the inertial mass of the moving parts. And the piezos also provide high forces at low speeds, so no gear box is needed. Villgrattner describes the device's mechanical design and kinematics and dynamics analysis in a paper titled "Optimization and Dynamic Simulation of a Parallel Three Degree-of-Freedom Camera Orientation System," presented at last month's IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

The current prototype weighs in at just 100 grams. It was able to reproduce the fastest eye movements, known as saccades, and also perform movements much faster than what our eyes can do. The system, Villgrattner tells me, was mainly designed for a "head-mounted gaze-driven camera system," but he adds that it could also be used "for remote eye trackers, for eye related 'Wizard of Oz' tests, and as artificial eyes for humanoid robots." In particular, this last application -- eyes for humanoid robots -- appears quite promising, and the Munich team is already working on that. Current humanoid eyes are rather simple, typically just static cameras, and that's understandable given all the complexity in these machines. It would be cool to see robots with humanlike -- or super human -- gaze capabilities.

Below is a video of the camera-orientation system (the head-mount device is not shown). First, it moves the camera in all three single axes (vertical, horizontal, and longitudinal) with an amplitude of about 30 degrees. Next it moves simultaneously around all three axes with an amplitude of about 19 degrees. Then it performs fast movements around the vertical axis at 1000 degrees/second and also high dynamic movements around all axes. Finally, the system reproduces natural human eye movements based on data from an eye-tracking system." (source)

ScanMatch: A novel method for comparing fixation sequences (Cristino et al, 2010)

2010-11-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

Using algorithms designed to compare DNA sequence in eye movement comparison. Radical, with MATLAB source code, fantastic! Appears to be noise tolerant and outperform traditional Levenshtein-distance.

Abstract
We present a novel approach to comparing saccadic eye movement sequences based on the Needleman–Wunsch algorithm used in bioinformatics to compare DNA sequences. In the proposed method, the saccade sequence is spatially and temporally binned and then recoded to create a sequence of letters that retains fixation location, time, and order information. The comparison of two letter sequences is made by maximizing the similarity score computed from a substitution matrix that provides the score for all letter pair substitutions and a penalty gap. The substitution matrix provides a meaningful link between each location coded by the individual letters. This link could be distance but could also encode any useful dimension, including perceptual or semantic space. We show, by using synthetic and behavioral data, the benefits of this method over existing methods. The ScanMatch toolbox for MATLAB is freely available online (www.scanmatch.co.uk).

Filipe Cristino, Sebastiaan Mathôt, Jan Theeuwes, and Iain D. Gilchrist
ScanMatch: A novel method for comparing fixation sequences
Behav Res Methods 2010 42:692-700; doi:10.3758/BRM.42.3.692
Abstract Full Text (PDF) References

An improved algorithm for automatic detection of saccades in eye movement data and for calculating saccade parameters (Behrens et al, 2010)

2010-11-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Abstract
"This analysis of time series of eye movements is a saccade-detection algorithm that is based on an earlier algorithm. It achieves substantial improvements by using an adaptive-threshold model instead of fixed thresholds and using the eye-movement acceleration signal. This has four advantages: (1) Adaptive thresholds are calculated automatically from the preceding acceleration data for detecting the beginning of a saccade, and thresholds are modified during the saccade. (2) The monotonicity of the position signal during the saccade, together with the acceleration with respect to the thresholds, is used to reliably determine the end of the saccade. (3) This allows differentiation between saccades following the main-sequence and non-main-sequence saccades. (4) Artifacts of various kinds can be detected and eliminated. The algorithm is demonstrated by applying it to human eye movement data (obtained by EOG) recorded during driving a car. A second demonstration of the algorithm detects microsleep episodes in eye movement data."

F. Behrens, M. MacKeben, and W. Schröder-Preikschat
An improved algorithm for automatic detection of saccades in eye movement data and for calculating saccade parameters. Behav Res Methods 2010 42:701-708; doi:10.3758/BRM.42.3.701
Abstract Full Text (PDF References

Gaze Tracker 2.0 Preview

2010-10-28T01:03:00.001-07:00

On my 32nd birthday I'd like to celebrate by sharing this video highlighting some of the features in the latest version of the GT2.0 that I've been working on with Javier San Agustin and the GT forum. Open source eye tracking have never looked better. Enjoy!

HD video available (click 360p and select 720p)

Tobii embraces developers

2010-10-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Swedish eye tracking company Tobii recently announced that their Software Developer Kit (SDK) has been made available as a free download (you'll have to request/confirm the download through email). The kit contains solid documentation and samples in C++, Visual Basic and C#. It's without doubt the way to go if you want developers to adopt a platform. Note that you'll need written consent to redistribute the components with any application.

Previously the kit was sold separably, not only did you have to shell out +$30,000 for the tracker but an additional $4000 to make use of it in your own application. Good to see that they've come to their senses, even better is the embracing of third party platforms through the application marketplace, it's a fresh approach for a rather proprietary and closed industry. In its current form the "marketplace" is a list of third party applications that are in one way or another compatible with a Tobii system. Not to be confused with the IPhone/Android marketplaces where you can buy turn-key third party apps at a 30/70 split.

It's a move to make use of external efforts, to showcase what's possible with the platform and hence make their own products appear more attractive. Having active developers on your platform increases the likelihood it being used for next killer-application that everyone seems to be searching for. Still, the hardware is still out of reach for most end consumers. How do you convince application developers to utilize the technology when hardware alone is so expensive that it in most cases render even a 50/50 split impossible. Where is the $495 remote tracker? Here?

Eye Tracking Controlled Audio Sequencer

2010-10-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

How to build low cost eye tracking glasses for head mounted system (M. Kowalik, 2010)

2010-08-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Michał Kowalik of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland, has put together a great DIY instruction for a headmounted system using the ITU Gaze Tracker. The camera of choice is the Microsoft LifeCam VX-1000 which has been modified by removing the casing and IR filter. In addition, three IR LEDs illuminate the eye using power from the USB cabel. This is then mounted on a pair of safety glasses, just like Jason Babcock & Jeff Pelz previously have done. Total cost of the hardware less than 50€. Neat. Thanks Michal.

Download instructions as PDF (8.1Mb)

Call for Papers: ACM Transactions Special Issue on Eye Gaze

2010-08-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems
Special Issue on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human-Machine Interaction

Aims and Scope

Partly because of the increasing availability of nonintrusive and high-performance eye tracking devices, recent years have seen a growing interest in incorporating human eye gaze in intelligent user interfaces. Eye gaze has been used as a pointing mechanism in direct manipulation interfaces, for example, to assist users with “locked-in syndrome”. It has also been used as a reflection of information needs in web search and as a basis for tailoring information presentation. Detection of joint attention as indicated by eye gaze has been used to facilitate computer-supported human-human communication. In conversational interfaces, eye gaze has been used to improve language understanding and intention recognition. On the output side, eye gaze has been incorporated into the multimodal behavior of embodied conversational agents. Recent work on human-robot interaction has explored eye gaze in incremental language processing, visual scene processing, and conversation engagement and grounding.

This special issue will report on state-of-the-art computational models, systems, and studies that concern eye gaze in intelligent and natural human-machine communication. The nonexhaustive list of topics below indicates the range of appropriate topics; in case of doubt, please contact the guest editors. Papers that focus mainly on eye tracking hardware and software as such will be relevant (only) if they make it clear how the advances reported open up new possibilities for the use of eye gaze in at least one of the ways listed above.

Topics

Empirical studies of eye gaze in human-human communication that provide new insight into the role of eye gaze and suggest implications for the use of eye gaze in intelligent systems. Examples include new empirical findings concerning eye gaze in human language processing, in human-vision processing, and in conversation management.
Algorithms and systems that incorporate eye gaze for human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction. Examples include gaze-based feedback to information systems; gaze-based attention modeling; exploiting gaze in automated language processing; and controlling the gaze behavior of embodied conversational agents or robots to enable grounding, turn-taking, and engagement.
Applications that demonstrate the value of incorporating eye gaze in practical systems to enable intelligent human-machine communication.

Guest Editors

Elisabeth André, University of Augsburg, Germany (contact: andre[at]informatik[dot]uni-augsburg.de)
Joyce Chai, Michigan State University, USA

Important Dates

By December 15th, 2010: Submission of manuscripts
By March 23rd, 2011: Notification about decisions on initial submissions
By June 23rd, 2011: Submission of revised manuscripts
By August 25th, 2011: Notification about decisions on revised manuscripts
By September 15th, 2011: Submission of manuscripts with final minor changes
Starting October, 2011: Publication of the special issue on the TiiS website and subsequently in the ACM Digital Library and as a printed issue

Source http://tiis.acm.org/special-issues.html

Eye control for PTZ cameras in video surveillance

2010-08-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Bartosz Kunka, a PhD student at the Gdańsk University of Technology have employed a remote gaze-tracking system called Cyber-Eye to control PTZ cameras in video surveillance and video-conference systems. The movie prepared for system presentation on Research Challange at SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles.

EOG used to play Super Mario

2010-08-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Came across some fun work by Waterloo labs that demos how to use a bunch of electrodes and a custom processing board to do signal analysis and estimate eye movement gestures though measuring EOG. It means you'll have to glance at the roof or floor to issue commands (no gaze point-of-regard estimation). Good thing is that the technology doesn't suffer from issues with light, optics and sensors that often makes video based eye tracking and gaze point-of-regard estimation complex. Bad thing is that it requires custom hardware, mounting of electrodes and wires, besides that the interaction style appears to involve looking away from what you are really interested in.

Eye tracking game concept

2010-07-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

Eye tracking game: Summary from theo tveteras on Vimeo.

Video-games can be beneficial!

2010-06-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

Appears video-games can be beneficial your your eyes despite what mother said. Came across this article in the British Daily Mail, found it inspiring and believe it could be done even better with an interactive application using real-time gaze tracking input. Direct quote:

"A six-year-old boy who nearly went blind in one eye can now see again after he was told to play on a Nintendo games console. Ben Michaels suffered from amblyopia, or severe lazy eye syndrome in his right eye from the age of four. His vision had decreased gradually in one eye and without treatment his sight loss could have become permanent. His GP referred him to consultant Ken Nischal who prescribed the unusual daily therapy. Ben, from Billericay, Essex, spends two hours a day playing Mario Kart on a Nintendo DS with his twin Jake. Ben wears a patch over his good eye to make his lazy one work harder. The twins' mother, Maxine, 36, said that from being 'nearly blind' in the eye, Ben's vision had 'improved 250 per cent' in the first week. She said: 'When he started he could not identify our faces with his weak eye. Now he can read with it although he is still a way off where he ought to be. 'He was very cooperative with the patch, it had phenomenal effect and we’re very pleased.' Mr Nischal of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, said the therapy helped children with weak eyesight because computer games encourage repetitive eye movement, which trains the eye to focus correctly. 'A games console is something children can relate to. It allows us to deliver treatment quicker,' he said. 'What we don’t know is whether improvement is solely because of improved compliance, ie the child sticks with the patch more, or whether there is a physiological improvement from perceptual visual learning.' The consultant added that thousands of youngsters and adults could benefit from a similar treatment." (source)

Tobii Glasses. A new headmounted eye tracker.

2010-06-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Appears the rumor was true after all, the guys at Tobii today announced the "Glasses" which integrates a miniature eye tracking system into the frames of a pair of glasses. The sleek form factor differentiates it from the alternatives which requires either a helmet or a camera attached to a extended rod. Whats really impressive is that they've managed to integrate a front facing scene camera (black arrow) and the eye tracking camera (blue arrow), IR illumination and a remote IR control mechanism (above the scene camera) for external scene markers into the small form factor.

Tobii Glasses, a new headmounted eye tracker.

Both cameras appears to operate at 640x480 resolution at 30 frames per second, a tad slow for eye tracking but that's a trade-off for the small form factor, I guess the sensor is similar to the ones you will find in cellphones and webcams. Above the tracking sensor there is the IR illumination which probably consists of a single IR LED. I recently made some experiments with a modified off-the-shelf web cam for a head-mounted setup which also runs at 640x480 at 30 fps. The size of sensor is really small but it takes resources to miniaturize the electronics and construct a custom single chip solution for integration such a small form factor. Just have a look at the iPhone4 VGA camera to see how small they've become, perhaps even a forward facing scene camera using a HD sensor would have been possible.

The "glass" is coated with a hot mirror filter which is a specialized dielectric mirror (illustrated left, source Wikipedia), this appears transparent to the eye as it passes visible light but reflects the infrared eye camera image. This resulting in an effect similar to window glass which appears to be a mirror on the outside but see-through from the inside (only reversed). Hot glass mirrors can be purchased online with varying specifications in wavelengths, visible light transmission etc. from suppliers like UQG.

Another nice feature is the battery operated infrared scene markers. These appears to be equipped with a sensor which is activated by IR signals emitted by the glasses with a range of 60-250cm. When the scene marker is activated it starts emitting a unique pattern which is picked up by the front facing camera to enable automatic Area Of Interest definition.

All-in-all its a pretty awesome engineering job from the guys in Stockholm. Performance-wise it's got a bit to go compared to solutions like the SMI IViewX HED (operates at 200Hz) but the convenient form factor is second to none.

More information at the Tobii site.

Update: Sample video demonstrating the system in use while driving the busy streets of Stockholm and grocery shopping at ICA Maxi.

Speech Dasher: Fast Writing using Speech and Gaze (K. Vertanen & D. MacKay, 2010)

2010-06-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

A new version of the Dasher typing interface utilizes speech recognition provided by the CMU PocketSphinx software doubles the typing performance measured in words per minute. From a previous 20 WPM to 40 WPM, close to what a professional keyboard jockey may produce.

Abstract
Speech Dasher allows writing using a combination of speech and a zooming interface. Users ﬁrst speak what they want to write and then they navigate through the space of recognition hypotheses to correct any errors. Speech Dasher’s model combines information from a speech recognizer, from the
user, and from a letter-based language model. This allows fast writing of anything predicted by the recognizer while also providing seamless fallback to letter-by-letter spelling for words not in the recognizer’s predictions. In a formative user study, expert users wrote at 40 (corrected) words per
minute. They did this despite a recognition word error rate of 22%. Furthermore, they did this using only speech and the direction of their gaze (obtained via an eye tracker).

Speech Dasher: Fast Writing using Speech and Gaze
Keith Vertanen and David J.C. MacKay. CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, To appear. [Abstract+videos, PDF, BibTeX]

Abstracts from SWAET 2010

2010-05-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

The booklet containing the abstracts for the Scandinavian Workshop on Applied Eye Tracking (SWAET) is now available for download, 55 pages about 1Mb. The abstracts spans a wide range from gaze interaction to behavior and perception. A short one page format makes it attractive to venture into a multitude of domains and acts as a nice little starting point for digging deeper. Shame I couldn't attend, maybe next year. Kudos for making this booklet available.

Title	Authors
Eye movements during mental imagery are not perceptual re-enactments	R. Johansson, J. Holsanova, K. Holmqvist
Practice eliminates "looking at nothing"	A. Scholz, K. Mehlhorn, J.F. Krems
Learning Perceptual Skills for Medical Diagnosis via Eye Movement Modeling Examples on Patient Video Cases	H. Jarodzka, T. Balslev, K. Holmqvist, K. Scheiter, M. Nyström, P. Gerjets, B. Eika
Objective, subjective, and commercial information: The impact of presentation format on the visual inspection and selection of Web search results	Y. Kammerer, P. Gerjets
Eye Movements and levels of attention: A stimulus driven approach	F.B. Mulvey, K. Holmqvist, J.P Hansen
Player‟s gaze in a collaborative Tetris game	P Jermann, M-A Nüssli, W. Li
Naming associated objects: Evidence for parallel processing	L. Mortensen , A.S. Meyer
Reading Text Messages - An Eye-Tracking Study on the Influence of Shortening Strategies on Reading Comprehension	V. Heyer, H. Hopp
Eye movement measures to study the online comprehension of long (illustrated) texts	J. Hyönä, J.K, Kaakinen
Self-directed Learning Skills in Air-traffic Control; A Cued Retrospective Reporting Study	L.W. van Meeuwen, S. Brand-Gruwel, J.J. G. van Merriënboer, J. J.P.R. de Bock, P.A. Kirschner
Drivers‟ characteristic sequences of eye and head movements in intersections	A. Bjelkemyr, K. Smith
Comparing the value of different cues when using the retrospective think aloud method in web usability testing with eye tracking	A. Olsen
Gaze behavior and instruction sensitivity of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders when viewing pictures of social scenes	B. Rudsengen, F. Volden
Impact of cognitive workload on gaze-including interaction	S. Trösterer, J. Dzaack
Interaction with mainstream interfaces using gaze alone	H. Skovsgaard, J. P. Hansen, J.C. Mateo
Stereoscopic Eye Movement Tracking: Challenges and Opportunities in 3D	G. Öqvist Seimyr, A. Appelholm, H. Johansson R. Brautaset
Sampling frequency – what speed do I need?	R. Andersson, M. Nyström, K. Holmqvist
Effect of head-distance on raw gaze velocity	M-A Nüssli, P. Jermann
Quantifying and modelling factors that influence calibration and data quality	M. Nyström, R. Andersson, J. van de Weijer

EyePhone - Mobil gaze interaction from University of Dartmouth

2010-05-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

From the Emiliano Miluzzo and the group at Sensorlab, part of the Computer Science department at University of Dartmouth, comes the EyePhone which enables rudimentary gaze based interaction for tablet computers. Contemporary devices often utilizes touch based interaction, this creates a problem with occlusion where the hands covers large parts of the display. EyePhone could help to alleviate this issue. The prototype system demonstrated offers enough accuracy for an interfaces based on a 3x3 grid layout but with better hardware and algorithms there is little reason why this couldn't be better. However, a major issue with a mobile system is just the mobility of both the user and the hardware, in practice this means that not only the individual head moments has to be compensated for but also movements of the camera in essentially all degrees of freedom. Not an easy thing to solve but it's not a question of "if" but "when". Perhaps there is something that could be done using the angular position sensors many mobile devices already have embedded. This is an excellent first step and with a thrilling potential. Additional information is available in the M.I.T Technology Review article.

Abstract
As smartphones evolve researchers are studying new techniques to ease the human-mobile interaction. We propose EyePhone, a novel "hands free" interfacing system capable of driving mobile applications/functions using only the user's eyes movement and actions (e.g., wink). EyePhone tracks the user's eye movement across the phone's display using the camera mounted on the front of the phone; more speci cally, machine learning algorithms are used to: i) track the eye and infer its position on the mobile phone display as a user views a particular application; and ii) detect eye blinks that emulate mouse clicks to activate the target application under view. We present a prototype implementation of EyePhone on a Nokia 810, which is capable of tracking the position of the eye on the display, mapping this positions to a function that is activated by a wink. At no time does the user have to physically touch the phone display.

Figures. Camera images, eye region of interests and reported accuracies. Click to enlarge.

Emiliano Miluzzo, Tianyu Wang, Andrew T. Campbell, EyePhone: Activating Mobile Phones With Your Eyes. To appear in Proc. of The Second ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Networking, Systems, and Applications on Mobile Handhelds (MobiHeld'10), New Delhi, India, August 30, 2010. [pdf] [video]

Magnetic Eye Tracking Device from Arizona State University

2010-05-20T01:59:00.000-07:00

A group of students at the Arizona State University have revisited the scleral search coil to develop a new low-cost Magnetic Eye Tracking Device (METD). The entrepreneurs aim at making this technology available to the public at an affordable $4000 and are primarily targeting disabled. More information is available at ASU News.

If your new to eye tracking it should be noted that the reporter claiming that common video based systems uses infrared lasers is just silly. It's essentially light-sources working in the IR spectrum (similar to the LED in your remote control).

GazePad: Low-cost remote webcam eye tracking

2010-04-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

Came across the GazeLib low-cost remote eye tracking project today which uses ordinary webcams without IR illumination. The accuracy is pretty low but it's really nice to see another low-cost approach for assistive technology.

"GazeLib is a programming library which making real-time low-cost gaze tracking becomes possible. The library provide functions performing remote gaze tracking under ambient lighting condition using a single, low cost, off-the-shelf webcam. Developers can easily build gaze tracking technologies implemented applications in only few lines of code. GazeLib project focuses on promoting gaze tracking technology to consumer-grade human computer interfaces by reducing the price, emphasizing ease-of-use, increasing the extendibility, and enhancing the flexibility and mobility."

Freie Universität Berlin presents gaze controlled car

2010-04-26T14:21:00.001-07:00

From the Freie Universität in Berlin comes a working prototype for a systems that allows direct steering by eye movements alone. The prototype was demonstrated in front of a large group journalist at the former Berlin Tempelhof Airport. Gaze data from a head-mounted SMI eye tracker is feed into the control system of the Spirit of Berlin, a platform for autonomous navigation. Similar to the gaze controlled robot we presented at CHI09 the platform offers a coupling between the turning of the wheels and the gaze data coordinate space (eg. look left and car drives left). Essentially its a mapping onto a 2D plane where deviations from the center issues steering commands and the degree of turning is modulated by the distance. Potentially interesting when coupled with other sensors that in combination offers offer driver support, for example if an object in the vehicles path that driver has not seen. Not to mention scenarios including individuals with disabilities and/or machine learning. The work has been carried out under guidance by professor Raúl Rojas as part AutoNOMOS project which has been running since 2006 after inspiration from the Stanford autonomos car project.

More info in the press-release.

Low-cost Remote Eyetracking

2010-04-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

Open-source gaze tracker awarded Research Pearls of ITU Copenhagen

2010-04-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

The open-source eye tracker ITU Gaze Tracker primarily developed by Javier San Augustin, Henrik Skovsgaard and myself has been awarded the Research Pearls of the IT University of Copenhagen. A presentation will be held at ITU on May 6th at 2pm. The software released one year ago have seen more than 5000 downloads by students and hobbyist around the world. It's rapidly approaching a new release which will offer better performance and stability for remote tracking and many bug fixes in general. The new version adds support for a whole range of new HD web cameras. These provides a vastly improved image quality that finally brings hope for a low-cost, open, flexible and reasonably performing solution. The ambitious goal strives to make eye tracking technology available for everyone, regardless of available resources. Follow the developments at the forum. Additional information is available at the ITU Gaze Group.

"The Open-Source ITU Gaze Tracker"

Abstract:
Gaze tracking offers them the possibility of interacting with a computer by just using eye movements, thereby making users more independent. However, some people (for example users with a severe disability) are excluded from access to gaze interaction due to the high prices of commercial systems (above 10.000€). Gaze tracking systems built from low-cost and off-the-shelf components have the potential of facilitating access to the technology and bring prices down.

The ITU Gaze Tracker is an off-the-shelf system that uses an inexpensive web cam or a video camera to track the user’s eye. It is free and open-source, offering users the possibility of trying out gaze interaction technology for a cost as low as 20€, and to adapt and extend the software to suit specific needs.

In this talk we will present the open-source ITU Gaze Tracker and show the different scenarios in which the system has been used and evaluated.

Digital avatars gets human-like eye movements

2010-04-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

William Steptoe of University College London got his research on using eye tracking to give digital avatars human-like eye movements covered in an article by New Scientist. It turns out that "on average, the participants were able to identify 88 per cent of truths correctly when the avatars had eye movement, but only 70 per cent without. Spotting lies was harder, but eye movement helped: 48 per cent accuracy compared with 39 per cent without. Steptoe will present the results at the 2010 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Atlanta, Georgia, next week."

Eye tracking in the wild: Consumer decision-making process at the supermarket

2010-04-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Kerstin Gidlöf from the Lund University Humlab talks about the visual appearance of consumer products in the supermarket and how the graphical layout modulates our attention. Perhaps the free will is just an illusion, however number of items in my fridge containing faces equals zero. Is it me or the store I'm shopping at?

Text 2.0 gaze assisted reading

2010-03-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

From the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence comes a new demonstration of a gaze based reading system, Text 2.0, which utilizes eye tracking for making the reading experience more dynamic and interactive. For example the system can display images relevant to what your reading about or filter out less relevant information if your skimming through the content. The research is funded through the Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Innovation. On the groups website you can also find an interesting project called PEEP which allows developers to connect eye trackers to Processing which enables aesthetically stunning visualizations. This platform is the core of the Text2.0 platform. Check out the videos.

More information:
Zdf.de: Wenn das auge die seite umblaettert?
Wired: Eye-Tracking Tablets and the Promise of Text 2.0
More demos at the groups website

Low-cost eye tracking and pong gaming from Imperial College London

2010-03-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

A group of students at the Imperial College London have develop a low-cost head mounted tracker which they use to play Pong with. The work is carried out under supervision of Aldo Faisal in his lab.

"We built an eyetracking system using mass-marketed off-the shelf components at 1/1000 of that cost, i.e. for less then 30 GBP. Once we made such a system that cheap we started thinking of it as a user interface for everyday use for impaired people.. The project was enable by realising that certain mass-marketed web cameras for video game consoles offer impressive performance approaching that of much more expensive research grade cameras.

"From this starting point research in our group has focussed on two parts so far:

1. The TED software, which is composed of two components which can run on two different computers (connected by wireless internet) or run on the same computer. The first component is the TED server (Linux-based) which interfaces directly with the cameras and processes the high-speed video feed and makes the data available (over the internet) to the client software. The client forms the second components, it is written in Java (i.e. it runs on any computer, Windows, Mac, Unix, ...) and provides the Mouse-control-via-eye-movements, the “Pong” video game as well as configuration and calibration functions.

This two part solution allows the cameras to be connected to a cost-effective netbook (e.g. on a wheel chair) and allow control of other computers over the internet (e.g. in the living room, office and kitchen). This software suite, as well as part of the low-level camera driver was implemented by Ian Beer, Aaron Berk, Oliver Rogers and Timothy Treglown, for their undergraduate project in the lab.

Note:the “Pong” video game has a two player mode, allowing two people to play against each other using two eye-trackers or eye-tracker vs keyboard. It is very easy to use, just look where you want the pong paddle to move...

2. The camera-spectacles (visible in most press photos), as well as a two-camera software (Windows-based) able to track eye-movements in 3D (i.e. direction and distance) for wheelchair control. These have been build and developed by William Abbott (Dept. of Bioengineering)."

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Topics

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