Eye searching technique for video-based eye-gaze detection

Abstract

In our video-based eye-gaze detection method, which was made for communicators for the physically disadvantaged, before starting eye gaze detection, a tending person had to manually adjust the direction of the mirror in front of the camera so that the camera would get the user's eye. To remove this burden, we designed an automatic eye searching technique.In our system, the eye image is zoomed in for high eyegaze resolution. In the procedure of the search, first, to quickly find the eye, which determines the eye gaze, the eye image was zoomed out so that the camera visual field would become wide. Second, while the mirror was rotated stepwise in a rectangular region near the subject's face, it was judged whether both of the two pupils existed in the camera frame. If they were judged to exist, the mirror was rotated the only one pupil would come to the image center. Finally, the pupil image was zoomed in.The result showed that the search for the eye is possible. Although the time necessary for the search was long in the present stage of this study, the other strategies for searching would make it much shorter.

A pilot study on ultrasonic sensor-based measurement of head movement

“…Since the eye's image goes out of the camera frame as a result of large head movements, we have proposed methods by which a camera [2] or a mirror set in front of the camera [3] is rotated, so that the eye image is maintained in the center of the camera frame. However, once the eye image was lost from the frame, it must have been searched by their rotation [4]. This searching needed a significant period of time.…”