Accurate eye segmentation can improve eye-gaze estimation and support interactive computing based on visual attention; however, existing eye segmentation methods suffer from issues such as person-dependent accuracy, lack of robustness, and an inability to be run in real-time. Here, we present the RITnet model, which is a deep neural network that combines U-Net and DenseNet. RITnet is under 1 MB and achieves 95.3% accuracy on the 2019 OpenEDS Semantic Segmentation challenge. Using a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, RITnet tracks at > 300Hz, enabling real-time gaze tracking applications. Pre-trained models and source code are available 1 . * Equal Contribution. 1 https://bitbucket.org/eye-ush/ritnet/
The inability of current video-based eye trackers to reliably detect very small eye movements has led to confusion about the prevalence or even the existence of monocular microsaccades (small, rapid eye movements that occur in only one eye at a time). As current methods often rely on precisely localizing the pupil and/or corneal reflection on successive frames, current microsaccade-detection algorithms often suffer from signal artifacts and a low signal-to-noise ratio. We describe a new video-based eye tracking methodology which can reliably detect small eye movements over 0.2 degrees (12 arcmin) with very high confidence. Our method tracks the motion of iris features to estimate velocity rather than position, yielding a better record of microsaccades. We provide a more robust, detailed record of miniature eye movements by relying on more stable, higher-order features (such as local features of iris texture) instead of lower-order features (such as pupil center and corneal reflection), which are sensitive to noise and drift.
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