FaceSwitch - Low-Cost Accessibility Software for Computer Control Combining Gaze Interaction and Face Gestures

We introduce here the FaceSwitch, an accessibility software system designed to facilitate computer interaction for users who are challenged in the mobility of their upper limbs. The FaceSwitch software tracks landmark features in a user's face using a deformable face tracker. The system lets the user map specific facial gestures to customized computer control commands such as left click, right-click, page down or escape through a convenient GUI. Hence, facial gestures act as substitutes of traditional mechanical switches. When combining facial gestures with gaze interaction, the emergent multimodal interaction paradigm improves the degrees of freedom offered by alternative accessibility software such as gaze only interaction, speech interaction or mechanical single-switch assisted gaze interaction. Furthermore, the FaceSwitch software improves the efficacy of traditional gaze interaction which has been traditionally limited by a high rate of false positives due to its dependence on target acquisition via dwell time activation. The FaceSwitch also reduces the latency to achieve a computer control task when compared to traditional accessibility software. We have made the FaceSwitch widely available in order for those in need to use it without restrictions and also to allow those with the right technical skills to potentially improve the software further.