Ocular Imaging Laboratory @ NASA Ames

Implicit Calibration of a Remote Gaze Tracker (2004)

We describe a system designed to monitor the gaze of a user working naturally at a computer workstation. The system consists of three cameras situated between the keyboard and the monitor. Free head movements are allowed within a three-dimensional volume approximately 40 centimeters in diameter. Two fixed, wide-field "face" cameras equipped with active-illumination systems enable rapid localization of the subject's pupils. A third steerable "eye" camera has a relatively narrow field of view, and acquires the images of the eyes, which are used for gaze estimation.
Unlike previous approaches (Beymer & Flickner, CVPR 2003) that construct an explicit three-dimensional representation of the subject's head and eye, we derive mappings for steering control and gaze estimation using a procedure we call implicit calibration. Implicit calibration is performed by collecting a "training set" of parameters and associated measurements, and solving for a set of coefficients relating the measurements back to the parameters of interest. Preliminary data on three subjects indicate a median gaze
estimation error of approximately 0.5 degree.