Measuring Behavior 2005: Lunkander and Virkkala

Extracting 3D gaze coordinates with real objects in real environments

K. Lukander and J. Virkkala

Section of Clinical Neurosciences, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland

This paper describes a novel gaze tracking system, capable of tracking gaze on a number of movable, tracked real world objects, for instance handheld mobile devices. The system integrates a gaze tracking device (SmartEye 3.0) with a positional tracking device (Polhemus Fastrak) used for tracking the target objects.

The majority of current gaze tracking studies have stimuli presented on a flat screen surface of a desktop computer. While these can give valuable information about vision and visual attention, they lack the capability to produce data on ‘real world situations’, eye-hand coordination and with visual target objects at different depths.

Unlike existing, scene video-based systems, the presented system gives accurate gaze coordinates on the surface of the objects. The resulting 3D gaze data can be analyzed and visualized in a number of ways. The application areas for the system include usability analysis of mobile devices and tracking cues on visual attention and perception while studying the use and utility of different objects.

The system is implemented as software running on a standard Windows platform. Apart from calibrating the gaze tracker, the subject can move freely within the operational envelopes of the trackers. The current frame rate is restricted by the frame rate of the trackers, both currently operating on a 60 Hz frequency, and the system is capable of producing gaze coordinates with adequate accuracy. The system includes an OpenGL-based 3D visualization of the current measurement environment.

The presentation will include a number of demonstration recordings from different measurement setups.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.