Home position recognition methods using polarizing films for an eye-gaze interface system

Abstract

In eye-gaze interface systems, users' head movements during use result in detection errors. This problem causes inaccurate positioning of the mouse pointer on the display screen. A mechanism that allows the user to recognize the home position, which is an appropriate position for the head while using an eye-gaze interface system, can provide a useful solution to the problem because the user can then simply adjust his/her head position. The implementation of such a mechanism does not require special equipment, such as a position sensor to detect head movement and calculate compensation. We thus propose in this paper methods for recognizing the home position using polarizing films. Taking advantage of the characteristics of polarizing films, we propose two guidance methods to help an eye-gaze interface system user recognize whether or not his/her head is in the home position and adjust the position of the head if needed. The results of our experiments reveal that our proposed methods improve the usability of eye-gaze interface systems, and that one of our methods is more effective than the other. Therefore, our mechanism is useful in producing simple and low-cost interface systems.