In past few decades, eye tracking has evolved as an emerging technology with wide areas of applications in gaming, human-computer interaction, business research, assistive technology, automatic safety research, and many more. Eye-gaze tracking is a provocative idea in computer-vision technology. This chapter includes the recent researches, expansion, and development in the technology, techniques, and its wide-ranging applications. It gives a detailed background of technology with all the efforts done in the direction to improve the tracking system.
TopBackground
The potential and importance of eye tracking was recognized by researchers, investigators and analysts in the early 18th century. The development in the field and technology of eye tracking have been through many phases and efforts in the past many years. An attempt to track eye developments while reading was depicted by Hering and by Lamare in 1879; both utilized comparative strategies of tuning in to sounds made by withdrawals of the extraocular muscles (Wade, 2010). Photographic records and light reflections from the eyes during reading task was used by Dodge and Cline to estimate horizontal eye movements (Drewes, 2010). An idea to measure both horizontal and vertical eye developments was conceived by Jung in 1939 placing electrodes close to the eye which measure changing electric field of the eye-ball due to its movement. Such a method involving electrodes relating electric properties of eye with its movements is called Electro-Oculography (EOG). Even the magnetic properties of human eye were cashed to retrace eye developments using principle of electromagnetic induction. Scleral search coils were placed into the eye in form of a lens to monitor eye movements (Bates et al., 2005). With advancement in technology, real-time computation of eye movements was made possible using video-based frameworks known as Video-Oculography. Improvement in the innovation, compact designs, enhanced algorithms, high precision and falling prices of the systems has encouraged the usage of the technology in many fields like business research (Koller et al., 2012),marketing and advertising (Rayner, Rotello, Stewart, Keir, & Duffy, 2001), human-computer interaction(HCI) (Drewes, 2010; Goldberg, Stimson, Lewenstein, Scott, & Wichansky, 2002; Jacob, 1990; Lee & Tsai, 2010), assistive technology as if eye typing for physically disabled (Balan, Moldoveanu, Morar, & Asavei, 2013; Lupu & Ungureanu, 2013; Majaranta & Raiha, 2002) automated safety systems, drowsiness detection (Picot, Charbonnier, & Caplier, 2010), as a clinical support for iris acknowledgment (Xu, Zhang, & Ma, 2006), visual search (Greene & Rayner, 2001), psychology and neuroscience (Rayner, 1998; Snodderly, Kagan, & Gur, 2001; Vidal, Turner, Bulling, & Gellersen, 2012), evaluation of e-learning systems (Hend & Remya, 2010), Cognitive and behavioral therapy (Grillon, Riquier, Herbelin, & Thalmann, 2006).