EyeGazer
Eye Gazer is an advanced web-based system that enables interaction with digital interfaces through eye movements, leveraging the user’s webcam for gaze tracking. It’s designed to capture and analyze where a person is looking on the screen in real-time, providing hands-free control for tasks such as clicking, scrolling, and selecting items. This technology is often built on top of machine learning algorithms that interpret eye movements and map them to specific screen coordinates.
The core functionality of Eye Gazer typically involves three steps:
- Calibration: The system requires an initial calibration phase, where users focus on different points on the screen to train the model and improve gaze accuracy.
- Gaze Detection: After calibration, the tool continuously tracks eye movement, detecting where the user’s gaze lands and translating that into actionable data.
- Interaction: Based on gaze location, users can perform actions like clicking by dwelling on a specific point or interacting with custom elements built into the UI.
Technology
The technology behind Eye Gazer often involves computer vision techniques, using the webcam feed to detect the user’s pupils and estimate the gaze direction. Some implementations integrate machine learning models to improve precision and accommodate different lighting conditions, user behaviors, and individual variances.
Applications of Eye Gazer include:
- Accessibility: Helping users with motor impairments to interact with websites and software through eye movements.
- Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): As an innovative interface method, it allows for alternative interaction modes in web apps and research experiments.
- User Experience Testing: By tracking where users are looking, Eye Gazer can provide insights into user attention, engagement, and interface usability.
Eye Gazer can be integrated with common web technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and is often employed in experimental projects, accessibility tools, and web extensions to enhance user experiences in a seamless, hands-free manner.
Eye Gazer is a web-based tool that enables gaze-based interaction using a standard webcam, and it utilizes the WebGazer library to track and detect eye movements in real-time, allowing users to perform tasks like clicking and navigating hands-free.
WebGazer
WebGazer.js is an open-source library that leverages machine learning to estimate the gaze of web users by tracking the movement of their eyes through a standard webcam. It allows developers to integrate gaze-tracking capabilities into web applications without the need for specialized hardware or software.
Key Features of WebGazer:
- No Special Equipment: Uses the user’s regular webcam to track gaze, making it accessible for everyone without requiring additional devices like eye-tracking hardware.
- Real-time Gaze Estimation: WebGazer can predict the user's point of gaze on the screen in real-time by capturing webcam images and analyzing eye movements.
- Calibration Process: To improve accuracy, WebGazer requires a calibration step, where the user looks at specific points on the screen. This allows the system to map eye movements to specific screen coordinates.
- Browser-based: Since WebGazer runs entirely in the browser, it doesn’t require any external software installation. This makes it lightweight and easy to integrate into websites or web applications.
- Privacy-Friendly: WebGazer processes all data locally in the browser, ensuring user privacy by not sending video or eye-tracking data to external servers.
- Customizable: Developers can modify and extend WebGazer to suit their specific needs, such as creating custom gaze-based interactions like clicking, scrolling, and more.
By utilizing WebGazer, applications like EyeGazer can provide intuitive, hands-free web browsing experiences, making technology more accessible and interactive.