The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 09, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 28, 2001
Arnon Amir, Saratoga, CA (US);
Myron Dale Flickner, San Jose, CA (US);
David Bruce Koons, San Jose, CA (US);
Carlos Hitoshi Morimoto, Sao Paulo, BR;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A system and method for eye gaze tracking without calibrated cameras, direct measurements of specific users' eye geometries, or requiring the user to visually track a cursor traversing a known trajectory. The preferred embodiment includes two uncalibrated cameras imaging the user's eye and haying on-axis lighting. The cameras capture images of a test pattern in real space as reflected from the user's cornea, which is essentially a convex spherical mirror. The invention then extracts parameters required to define a mathematical mapping between real space and image space, including spherical and perspective transformations. The invention processes subsequent images of objects reflected from the user's eye through the inverse of the mathematical mapping to determine a gaze vector and a point of regard. Alternately, a single calibrated camera may be employed with means for estimating the eye-to-camera distance. A head-mounted embodiment that may include a laser pointer is also described.