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

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.
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Accurate eye center localisation for low-cost eye tracking

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

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)

Gaze Tracker 2.0 Preview

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)

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

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)

Magnetic Eye Tracking Device from Arizona State University

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

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."

Low-cost Remote Eyetracking

Open-source gaze tracker awarded Research Pearls of ITU Copenhagen

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.

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

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)."

Further reading:

Imperial College London press release: Playing “Pong” with the blink of an eye
The Engineer: Eye-movement game targets disabled
Engadget (German): Neurotechnologie: Pong mit Augenblinzeln gespielt in London

Mobile Dias Eye Tracker

Remember the Dias Eyetracker that I wrote about last May? Today Diako Mardanbeigi, from Tehran in Iran, presents a new version of the Dias eye tracker that is low-cost, wireless and fully mobile. I'll let the video demonstration below speak for itself. Rumor has it that Dias has been in contact with the ITU GazeGroup for a potential continuation of his research. Time will tell.



"This is a low cost mobile eye tracker with a wireless and Light weight head mounted hardware. This system gathers eye movements and estimates the point of gaze during the performance of daily tasks. It can let you to assess the visual behavior of the person online and in real-time when he is doing a specific task. A mobile eye tracker has a wide variety of applications in several fields such as human factors, market research, consumer shopping behavior, sports, driving, reading, safety & training. "

PhD Defense: Off-the-Shelf Gaze Interaction

Javier San Agustin will defend his PhD thesis on "Off-the-Shelf Gaze Interaction" at the IT University of Copenhagen on the 8th of January from 13.00 to (at most) 17.00. The program for the event consists of a one hour presentation which is followed by a discussion with the committee, formed by Andrew Duchowski, Bjarne Kjær Ersbøll, and Arne John Glenstrup. Whereby a traditional reception with snacks and drinks will be held.

Update: The thesis is now available as PDF, 179 pages, 3.6MB.

Abstract of the thesis:

People with severe motor-skill disabilities are often unable to use standard input devices such as a mouse or a keyboard to control a computer and they are, therefore, in strong need for alternative input devices. Gaze tracking offers them the possibility to use the movements of their eyes to interact with a computer, thereby making them more independent. A big effort has been put toward improving the robustness and accuracy of the technology, and many commercial systems are nowadays available in the market.

Despite the great improvements that gaze tracking systems have undergone in the last years, high prices have prevented gaze interaction from becoming mainstream. The use of specialized hardware, such as industrial cameras or infrared light sources, increases the accuracy of the systems, but also the price, which prevents many potential users from having access to the technology. Furthermore, the different components are often required to be placed in specific locations, or are built into the monitor, thus decreasing the flexibility of the setup.

Gaze tracking systems built from low-cost and off-the-shelf components have the potential to facilitate access to the technology and bring the prices down. Such systems are often more flexible, as the components can be placed in different locations, but also less robust, due to the lack of control over the hardware setup and the lower quality of the components compared to commercial systems.

The work developed for this thesis deals with some of the challenges introduced by the use of low-cost and off-the-shelf components for gaze interaction. The main contributions are:

• Development and performance evaluation of the ITU Gaze Tracker, an off-the-shelf gaze tracker that uses an inexpensive webcam or video camera to track the user's eye. The software is readily available as open source, offering the possibility to try out gaze interaction for a low price and to analyze, improve and extend the software by modifying the source code.

• A novel gaze estimation method based on homographic mappings between planes. No knowledge about the hardware configuration is required, allowing for a flexible setup where camera and light sources can be placed at any location.

• A novel algorithm to detect the type of movement that the eye is performing, i.e. fixation, saccade or smooth pursuit. The algorithm is based on eye velocity and movement pattern, and allows to smooth the signal appropriately for each kind of movement to remove jitter due to noise while maximizing responsiveness.

Remote tracker and 6DOF using a webcam

The following video clips demonstrates a Masters thesis project from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. The method developed provides 6 degrees of freedom head tracking and 2D eye tracking using a simple, low resolution 640x480 webcam. Under the hood it's based on the Lucas-Kanade optical flow and POSIT. A great start as the head tracking seems relatively stable. Imagine it with IR illumination, a camera with slightly higher resolution and a narrow angle lens. And of course, pupil + glint tracking algorithms for calibrated gaze estimation.

ITU GazeTracker in the wild

Came across these two Youtube videos from students out there using the ITU GazeTracker in their HCI projects. By now the software has been downloaded 3000 times and the forum has seen close to three hundred posts. It's been a good start, better yet, a new version is in the makings. It offers a complete network API for third party applications, improved tracking performance, better camera control and a number of bugfixes (thanks for your feedback). It will be released when it's ready.







Thanks for posting the videos!

The EyeWriter project

For some time I've been following the EyeWriter project which aims at enabling Tony, who has ALS, to draw graffiti using eye gaze alone. The open source eye tracker is available at Google code and is based on C++, OpenFrameworks and OpenCV. The current version supports basic pupil tracking based on image thresholding and blob detection but they are aiming for remote tracking using IR glints. Keep up the great work guys!

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

eyewriter tracking software walkthrough from thesystemis on Vimeo.

More information is found at http://fffff.at/eyewriter/

A geometric approach to remote eye tracking (Villanueva et al, 2009)

Came across this paper today, it's good news and a great achievement, especially since consumer products for recording high definition over a plain USB port has begun to appear. For example the upcoming Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD provides 1,280 x 720 at 30 frames per second. This is to be released on September 9th at a reasonable US$ 80. Hopefully it will allow a simple modification to remove the infrared blocking filter. Things are looking better and better for low-cost eye tracking, keep up the excellent work, it will make a huge difference for all of us.

Abstract
"This paper presents a principled analysis of various combinations of image features to determine their suitability for remote eye tracking. It begins by reviewing the basic theory underlying the connection between eye image and gaze direction. Then a set of approaches is proposed based on different combinations of well-known features and their behaviour is valuated, taking into account various additional criteria such as free head movement, and minimum hardware and calibration requirements. The paper proposes a final method based on multiple glints and the pupil centre; the method is evaluated experimentally. Future trends in eye tracking technology are also discussed."


The algorithms were implemented in C++ running on a Windows PC equipped with a Pentium 4 processor at 3 GHz and 1 GB of Ram. The camera of choice delivers 15 frames per second at 1280 x 1024. Optimal distance from screen is 60 cm which is rather typical for remote eye trackers. This provides a track-box volume of 20 x 20 x 20 cm. Within this area the algorithms produce an average accuracy of 1.57 degrees. A 1 degree accuracy may be achieved obtained if the head is the same position as it was during calibration. Moving the head parallel to the monitor plane increases error by 0.2 - 0.4 deg. while moving closer or further away introduces a larger error between 1-1.5 degrees (mainly due to camera focus range). Note that no temporal filtering was used in the reporting. All-in-all these results are not so far from what typical remote systems produce.


The limitation of 15 fps stems from the frame rate of the camera, the software itself is able to process +50 images per second on the specified machine. Leaving it to our imagination what frame rates may be achieved with a fast Intel Core i7 processor with four cores.

• A. Villanueva, G. Daunys, D. Hansen, M. Böhme, R. Cabeza, A. Meyer, and E. Barth, "A geometric approach to remote eye tracking," Universal Access in the Information Society. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10209-009-0149-0

Hi –fi eyetracking with a lo-fi eyetracker: An experimental usability study of an eyetracker built from a standard web camara (Barret, M., 2009)

Marie Barret, a masters student at the ITU Copenhagen have now finished her thesis. It evaluates eye typing performance using the ITU Gaze Tracker (low-cost web cam eye tracker) in the Stargazer and GazeTalk interfaces. The thesis in written in Danish (113 pages) but I took the freedom of translating two charts from the thesis found below. The results will be presented in English at the COGAIN 2009 conference, May 26th (session three, track one at 1:50PM) For now I quote the abstract:

"Innovation has facilitated sufficient mainstream technology to build eyetrackers from off-the-shelf-components. Prices for standard eyetrackers start at around € 4000. This thesis describes an experimental usabilty study of gazetyping with a new input device built from a standard web camera without hardware modifications. Cost: € 20. Mainstreaming of assistive technologies holds potential for faster innovation, better service, lower prices and increased accessibility. Off-the-shelf-eyetrackers must be usability competitive to standard eyetrackers in order to be adopted, as eyetracking - even with expensive hardware - presents usability issues. Usability is defined as effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction (ISO 9242-11, 1998).

Results from the 2 * 2 factors experiment significantly indicate how the new input device can reach the usability standards of expensive eyetrackers. This study demonstrates that the off-the-shelf-eyetracker can achieve efficiency similar to an expensive eyetracker with no significant effect from any of the tested factors. All four factors have significant impact on effectiveness. A factor that can eliminate the effectiveness difference between the standard hardware and an expensive eyetracker is identified. Another factor can additionally improve effectiveness.

Two gazetyping systems specifically designed for noisy conditions e.g. due to bad calibration and jolting are tested. StarGazer uses a zooming interface and GazeTalk uses large buttons in a static graphic user interface. GazeTalk is significantly more effective than StarGazer. The large onscreen buttons and static interface of GazeTalk with dwell time activation absorb the noise from the input device and typing speeds obtained are comparable to prior research with a regular eyetracker. Clickactivation has for years (Ware & Mikaelian 1987) proved to improve efficiency of gazebased interaction. This experiment demonstrates that this result significantly applies to off-the-shelf eyetrackers as well. The input device relies on the user to compensate for off-set with head movements. The keyboards should support this task with a static graphic user interface." Download thesis as pdf (in Danish)

The Dias Eye Tracker (Mardanbeigi, 2009)

Diako Mardanbeigi at the Iran University of Science & Technology introduces the Dias Eye Tracking suite. It is a low-cost solution employing a head mounted setup and comes with a rather extensive suite of applications. The software offers gaze control for playing games and music, viewing images, and text-to-speech using a dwell keyboard. It also offers basic eye movement recording and visualization such as scanpaths. The software is built using Visual Basic 6 and implements various algorithms for eye tracking including a rectangular method, RANSAC or LSQ ellipse/circle fitting. Additionally, there is support tracking one or two glints. The following video demonstrates the hardware and software. Congratulations Daiko on this great work!

A brief users guide to the ITU Gaze Tracker

Today we release a short users guide for the open source eye tracker we presented some weeks ago. Hopefully it will assist first time users to configure the software and understanding the limitations of the initial version. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

• Download the pdf document (0.6Mb)

IDG Interview with Javier San Agustin

During the CHI09 in Boston last week Nick Barber from the IDG Network stopped by to record an interview with Javier San Agustin, member of the ITU GazeGroup. The video has now surfaced on several IDG sites around the world, clearly there is an interest for easy to use, low cost eye tracking. After the initial release of ITU Gaze Tracker we have setup a community forum at forum.gazegroup.org, with the ambition to connect users of open source eye tracking. If you like to be part of project, please join in promoting and developing an alternative. It´s open and accessible for all (platform documentation to be released in next week)

Hopefully, ideas and contributions to platform through the community makes the platform take off. Considering the initial release to be a Beta version, there are of course additional improvements to make. Additional cameras needs to be verified and bugs in code to be handled.

If you experience any issues or have ideas for improvements please post at http://forum.gazegroup.org

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