An algorithm for real-time stereo vision implementation of head pose and gaze direction measurement

To build smart human interfaces, it is necessary for a system to know a user's intention and point of attention. Since the motion of a person's head pose and gaze direction are deeply related with his/her intention and attention, detection of such information can be utilized to build natural and intuitive interfaces. We describe our real-time stereo face tracking and gaze detection system to measure head pose and gaze direction simultaneously. The key aspect of our system is the use of real-time stereo vision together with a simple algorithm which is suitable for real-time processing. Since the 3D coordinates of the features on a face can be directly measured in our system, we can significantly simplify the algorithm for 3D model fitting to obtain the full 3D pose of the head compared with conventional systems that use monocular camera. Consequently we achieved a non-contact, passive, real-time, robust, accurate and compact measurement system for head pose and gaze direction.