[solved] Making a mouse-alternative for multiple monitors

coolRR

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to create something and I'm hoping someone here can help me with some questions.

I'm an experienced Python developer. I want to build an eye-tracking setup in which I don't have to use a mouse. I want to use an eye-tracker to look at the point where I want to click, and then click with the keyboard. (I can do the logic for a magnifying glass, that's not a problem.)

The problem is: I need an eye-tracker setup where it can follow my gaze across 3-4 monitors. I need to be able to program it in Python. I don't know a line of C or any other programming language, so that's important for me. I'll be quiet happy to buy multiple eye-tracking devices if needed, as long as it works. I'm hoping for an eye-tracking solution that's mostly proven because I don't know anything about eye-tracking and I'd rather not have to spend too much time fiddling with the eye-tracking logic, just the mouse logic.

Can you recommend eye-tracking hardware/software with which I could do this?

Thanks for your help,
Ram Rachum.

Josh

Hi Ram,

Wow, that's not an easy feat. It would be fairly easy using a single screen. If there's a way to trick your computer into believing there's just one screen when you actually use four monitors, then you could also use the OpenSesame interface with one eyetracker. The thing with eyetrackers is that you need to calibrate the eye position. If you'd use 4 eye trackers, you'd have to calibrate 4 different eye positions, linked to 4 different screens; and then you'd also lose the communication amongst screens. Further, I don't know what screen setup you had in mind, but if it's e.g. 4 screens in a horizontal row, you would have to be able to turn your head (I suppose) and that's when eyetracking would go awry.

Then there's the problem of having to have decent accuracy - for which you need a professional eye tracker which easily costs between 40k-50k euros. There's very cheap eye trackers on the market (EyeTribe, only a 100 dollar), but these would be accurate enough to specify screen quadrants at most.

Cheers,

Josh

coolRR

Ah, thanks for the info Josh. I didn't know eye trackers were that sensitive to head movement. That makes my entire project unattractive, because the last thing I'd want is to be forced not to move my head. So I think I'll let this project go. Thanks for your help!

Josh

Any time!