An Automatic Personal Calibration Procedure for Advanced Gaze Estimation Systems

Gaze estimation systems use calibration procedures to estimate subject-specific parameters that are needed for the calculation of the point-of-gaze. In these procedures, subjects are required to fixate on a specific point or points in space at specific time instances. Advanced remote gaze estimation systems can estimate the optical axis of the eye without any personal calibration procedure, but use a single calibration point to estimate the angle between the optical axis and the visual axis (line-of-gaze). This paper presents a novel calibration procedure that does not require active user participation. To estimate the angles between the optical and visual axes of each eye, this procedure minimizes the distance between the intersections of the visual axes of the left and right eyes with one or more observation surfaces (displays) while subjects look naturally at these displays (e.g., watching a video clip). Theoretical analysis and computer simulations show that the performance of the proposed procedure improves when the range of angles between the visual axes and vectors normal to the observation surfaces increases. Experiments with four subjects show that the subject-specific angles between the optical and visual axes can be estimated with an rms error of 0.5°.

[1]  Andrew T Duchowski,et al.  A breadth-first survey of eye-tracking applications , 2002, Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.

[2]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  Covert monitoring of the point-of-gaze , 2009, 2009 IEEE Toronto International Conference Science and Technology for Humanity (TIC-STH).

[3]  Zhiwei Zhu,et al.  Eye and gaze tracking for interactive graphic display , 2002, SMARTGRAPH '02.

[4]  D. Whitteridge.  Movements of the eyes R. H. S. Carpenter, Pion Ltd, London (1977), 420 pp., $27.00 , 1979, Neuroscience.

[5]  K. Rayner.  Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. , 1998, Psychological bulletin.

[6]  Sheng-Wen Shih,et al.  A novel approach to 3-D gaze tracking using stereo cameras , 2004, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part B.

[7]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  A naturalistic visual scanning approach to assess selective attention in major depressive disorder , 2003, Psychiatry Research.

[8]  M. Eizenman,et al.  Remote Point-of-Gaze Estimation with Free Head Movements Requiring a Single-Point Calibration , 2007, 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[9]  Rafael Cabeza,et al.  Models for Gaze Tracking Systems , 2007, EURASIP J. Image Video Process..

[10]  Worthy N. Martin,et al.  Human-computer interaction using eye-gaze input , 1989, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[11]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  An on-road assessment of cognitive distraction: impacts on drivers' visual behavior and braking performance. , 2007, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[12]  Naoki Tanaka,et al.  Calibration-free gaze tracking using a binocular 3D eye model , 2009, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[13]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  General theory of remote gaze estimation using the pupil center and corneal reflections , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[14]  W. PEDDIE,et al.  Helmholtz's Treatise on Physiological Optics , 1926, Nature.

[15]  Gerald L. Lohse,et al.  Consumer Eye Movement Patterns on Yellow Pages Advertising , 1997 .

[16]  Joseph H. Goldberg,et al.  Computer interface evaluation using eye movements: methods and constructs , 1999 .

[17]  R. Asarnow,et al.  Exploratory Eye Movements to Pictures in Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) , 1999, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[18]  Jian-Gang Wang,et al.  Study on eye gaze estimation , 2002, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part B.

[19]  Yu-Te Wu,et al.  A calibration-free gaze tracking technique , 2000, Proceedings 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition. ICPR-2000.

[20]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  An automatic calibration procedure for remote eye-gaze tracking systems , 2009, 2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[21]  Moshe Eizenman,et al.  Remote point-of-gaze estimation requiring a single-point calibration for applications with infants , 2008, ETRA.

[22]  Paul A. Wetzel,et al.  An Eye Tracking System for Analysis of Pilots' Scan Paths. , 1997 .