ITU Gaze Tracker: An Open Source Eye Tracking Initiative

In a recent article passed along to us at Eye Tracking Update, three Ph.D. students from IT University are reported as having created an inexpensive alternative to many of the commercial eye gaze systems. Eye tracking devices and the accompanying expertise can be difficult for some to afford, but progress in the world of eye tracking has brought the overall costs down quite a bit since eye tracking first showed up on the scene.

They say their new invention can benefit everyone. The software is free and the only hardware necessary is a cheap webcam. The students’ goal, they say, is to make gaze tracking as mainstream as possible. They feel that the field has a lot of potential, but that the high prices keep away many would be experimenters. They want to make gaze tracking cheap and affordable by adapting software to make things more accessible overall.

For the most part, the various components are cheap, so it’s difficult to create an interface that is tolerant to visual noise. They say their gaze tracker is still in the works and therefore not as precise as commercial systems, but that presently it lives up to the standard requirements for gaze trackers.

The article goes on to discuss a little history, writing that some of the first attempts to measure the movement of the human eyes date back to the 19th century. Patients would have their eyes sedated with cocaine and a piece of metal placed over the eyeball to monitor the subtle movement. Sounds pretty archaic and painful. As technology has advanced, things have gotten better and a lot less painful.

Now with open source software, developers can keep their designs cheap and even free, making systems for the masses and pushing experimentation and research. Apparently the students’ system has been downloaded over 5000 times by users worldwide. In an open source world, the more the merrier, and some of the best feedback and troubleshooting comes from the community that surrounds the system. By nature, users share experiences and improve the device, and the progression is exponential.

Everybody has the right to speak with their eyes

No related articles.