Replacing mouse and trackball with tracked line of gaze
William E. Schroeder · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1993
Foster-Miller has recently demonstrated a prototype eye-slaved target acquisition interface for the AEGIS workstation system, the `Visual Trackball.' In proof-of-principle stage it functioned: hands-free, head free (no head tracker or `fiducial mark'), immediately at a high level without training, losing and recurring the eye (when the user looked away), with glasses (but not sharp division bifocals) and contacts, and, most importantly, twice as fast as a trackball in a controlled test (for novice and experienced users). Progress was made on two obstacles to a practical eye tracking computer interface: (1) moving a research technology out of the laboratory into the real world, and (2) using a sensor (the eye) as a communications channel. By taking subjects at random and asking them to perform a simulation of the AEGIS target acquisition task with no preparation and little training, much real-world experience was gained about glasses, eyelashes and eyelids, and people's ability to compensate for system and procedural deficiencies. Problem behaviors were identified for later work. The prototype had some `customizable' features. Three methods of feeding back calculated eye-gaze were tried. Smoothing of raw eye gaze data was also adjustable. Scope exists for improved function by fitting these factors to the user.