Simple-to-Calibrate Gaze Tracking Method

Abstract

Personal calibration is a procedure which offsets the impact of personal differences on gaze tracking performance. During the calibration, the user has to look precisely at five to twenty markers that are shown the computer screen in succession. While the calibration marker is displayed on the screen, the user should gaze at the marker without eye movement until it disappears. This is a troublesome and wearying task. If she doesn’t look at the exact position of the marker, or if there is any involuntary eye movement or eye blink, the result may contain gaze tracking error. The difficulty of calibration explodes when the number of calibration markers increases. Estimating human eye gaze without personal calibration is one of the most important goals in the field of gaze tracking technology. For researchers who want to capture the user’s eye movement by a gaze tracking system, it is well known that the high cost of traditional personal calibration procedures makes eye tracking studies difficult. For example, it is extremely difficult to observe a child’s eye movement because of the personal calibration barrier. Since infants cannot understand the observer’s instructions, personal calibration often fails. A lot of effort is needed to attract the children’s attention to the calibration markers to accomplish personal calibration. The problem of personal calibration is not limited to children. For example, it is difficult to measure the eye movements of a large number of subjects because calibration is so time consuming.