Robust remote gaze estimation method based on multiple geometric transforms

Abstract. The remote gaze estimation (RGE) technique has been widely used as a natural interface in consumer electronic devices for decades. Although outstanding outcomes on RGE have been recently reported in the literature, tracking gaze under large head movements is still an unsolved problem. General RGE methods estimate a user’s point of gaze (POG) using a mapping function representing the relationship between several infrared light sources and their corresponding corneal reflections (CRs) in the eye image. However, the minimum number of available CRs required for a valid POG estimation cannot be satisfied in those methods because the CRs often tend to be distorted or disappeared inevitably under the unconstrained eye and head movements. To overcome this problem, a multiple-transform-based method is proposed. In the proposed method, through three different geometric transform-based normalization processes, several nonlinear mapping functions are simultaneously obtained in the calibration process and then used to estimate the POG. The geometric transforms and mapping functions can be alternatively employed according to the number of available CRs even under large head movement. Experimental results on six subjects demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.