Keeping an Eye for HCI

We present a computer vision system for real time eye gaze tracking, and discuss some applications of the system to enhance human computer interaction (HCI). The system is based on a inexpensive, robust, real-time pupil detection technique that uses active illumination to segment the pupil. Once the pupil is detected, the glint on the cornea of the eye generated by the active illuminators, are also detected, and used as a reference point to compute the gaze direction. A simple calibration procedure allows the computer to estimate a screen coordinate to where the user is looking at. This information can be used by eye-aware applications to directly control the position of the cursor on the screen, or to assist the user based on her eye movements behavior.