Automatic direct gaze detection based on pupil symmetry
First Claim
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1. A method for direct gaze detection based on pupil symmetry comprising:
- finding one or both of a user'"'"'s pupil regions of eyes of the user in a video camera image from a video camera;
measuring a symmetry of a pupil region;
determining if the pupil region is close to round; and
if the pupil region is close to round, determining that the user is looking at the video camera.
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Abstract
The present invention provides a system and methods for direct gaze detection based on pupil symmetry. The system and methods work by first finding the user'"'"'s eyes in a video camera image and measuring the symmetry of the pupil region. If this pupil region is close to round, the invention determines that the user is looking nearly directly or close to directly at the camera, or has direct gaze at the camera. This technique handles both eye motions and head motions (e.g., the gaze may shift with or without the head being turned).
33 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for direct gaze detection based on pupil symmetry comprising:
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finding one or both of a user'"'"'s pupil regions of eyes of the user in a video camera image from a video camera; measuring a symmetry of a pupil region; determining if the pupil region is close to round; and if the pupil region is close to round, determining that the user is looking at the video camera. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A system for direct gaze detection based upon pupil symmetry, the system comprising:
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a video camera for finding eyes and pupil regions of a user, the video camera having an optical axis; a first set of infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for shining infrared light into the user'"'"'s eyes so that the video camera may acquire a first image of the user'"'"'s pupil regions; a second set of infrared LEDs for shining infrared light into the user'"'"'s eyes so that the video camera may acquire a second image of the user'"'"'s pupil regions; and a processing unit for computing a pixel-by-pixel difference of the first acquired image and the second acquired image for identifying possible retroreflectors. - View Dependent Claims (14)
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15. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable medium for operating in a system comprising a processing unit, a memory, a bus, and input/output (I/O) interfaces, for implementing a method for direct gaze detection of a user into a video camera, the method comprising:
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finding one or both of a user'"'"'s pupil regions of eyes of the user in a video camera image from a video camera; measuring a symmetry of at least pupil region; determining if the at least one pupil region is close to round; and if the at least one pupil region is close to round, determining that the user is looking at the video camera. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18)
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19. A method for deploying computing infrastructure comprising integrating computer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the code in combination with the computing system is capable of performing a process for detecting a direct gaze of a user into a video camera, the process comprising:
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finding one or both of a user'"'"'s pupil regions of eyes of the user in a video camera image from a video camera; measuring a symmetry of at least pupil region; determining if the at least one pupil region is close to round; and if the at least one pupil region is close to round, determining that the user is looking at the video camera. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification