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I am pretty sure think that the field of view from each eye tracker will overlap with each other and that will give you unpredictable results.
Theoretically, if it would be possible to make every eye trackers aware of each other and sync/calibrate in terms of which one is active for the particular area, that I believe could work. Sounds to me like it could be done on the software level, but I do not think it is possible at the moment. The same could apply for the ultra-wide curved monitors.
As a starting point for that, how would Windows handle 2 eye trackers connected to the same PC? Is it possible to address a particular eye tracker for lets say calibration? And on the API level, is it possible to intercept the coordinates from two eye trackers, process them and then forward as if it were one eye tracker or similar?
Hi,
I am just wondering if there has been any movement on this?Even if additional trackers were required then I think most people would be up for this.
I get sore wrists with how much I use PCs and the eye tracker takes the bulk of that movement away, solving the problem. The eye tracker is not cheap, but thats no problem compared to the discomfort without it. I have dual screens at work and at home. I would be getting trackers for all of them if multi monitor support was an option.
If its still not high enough up the priority list is it worth a kickstarter?
I can also report that a single eye tracker will almost track the range of both my screens. I have 2 x 27″ screens running at 4k. If I setup Nvidia Surround then the eye tracker works across both screens. This isn’t really practical for me because it means there is a bevel in the middle of any window that comes up. The eye tracker is obviously capable of tracking this region. Its a software limitation that it cannot be calibrated to do it when setup as separate display areas.
Hi @brotherkennyh, thanks for your query. In fact, we are currently working on providing multi-monitor support into our next generation of eye trackers but this will not apply unfortunately to the current commercially available range of consumer eye trackers (4C, Eyex)
Accordingly, please keep an eye on Tobii announcements on our website for upcoming details.
One possible workaround you could consider (which is not officially supported!) if you have the hardware could be to place two computers side by side each with an eye tracker connected running a singular keyboard and mouse shared via software such as Synergy Plus. However even in this scenario, there may be infrared interference from the parallel trackers that could affect performance.
@Grant, does this mean the Tobii 5C will have multi-monitor support? If so, do you know when? This is a very important feature for me and many others I know.
Hi @lexxish, whilst you can indeed connect multiple monitors to a system that has a Tobii eye tracker enabled, this does not mean that you can “spread” the eye tracking range over multiple monitors. I am afraid that for the time being, only a single monitor per eye tracker is supported for our latest Hardware.
I’m also very interested in this since I use three large (43″, 48″) 4k screens, a few of them (43″) in portrait mode. I sit at 38″ to 48″ away from the screens.
I was hoping that it might be possible to put a different tracker on the top of each screen, like using three screen top style web-cams (that is, if the software was eventually updated to allow multiple trackers). Besides that being a little cost prohibitive with 3 trackers on 3 screens, I read your reply saying that the infrared the system uses would likely overlap and clash anyway so using multiple trackers doesn’t seem like the solution.
I’d be very interested in a generation of the tracker(s) that can do multiple screens on a single pc, even if when only using desktop/apps for the mouse/app focusing, warp features etc. – rather than trying to do a multi-screen game necessarily.
On further thought..
perhaps it would be possible, theoretically in software someday:
..to hotkey or otherwise trigger each tracker atop separate screens based on which screen was the active screen at any given time. For example, once my leftmost screen was made active (by clicking on it or by activating a (e.g. displayfusion) hotkey, or other input registering method)… then that tracker could trigger to being active/on and the other trackers atop the other two screens would turn off/pause.
You could probably even set up a configurable “jump zone” on the edges of the screens where the mouse/focus would automatically jump across to the near edge of the next screen, disabling/pausing the other trackers and activating that next screen’s tracker. (Kind of like the snap zone for window dragging in a way).
The tracker’s pausing and unpausing or the software’s switching between trackers and ignoring the others using whatever method, would have to be fast and seamless though.
Hi elvn, thanks for your suggestions. The most likely scenario is that we will support multiple monitors in the future but for the time being we are focused on delivering an optimal experience with one monitor and one eye tracker as accuracy is necessarily compromised when the tracking area is spread over a larger area, but we continue to develop our technology and enjoy listening to user feedback such as yours.
Thanks I get that and will have to live with single screen limitation for quite awhile most likely.
However I still hope that someday, with your software, you’d be able to use “surround” trackers like I suggested for two or three screens side by side – buying one tracker per screen of course.
As you moved your focus/gaze to the edge of one screen it would hit a hot zone where that screen’s tracker would disengage..
Then the next screen over’s tracker would automatically wake up/engage as the previous one went to sleep and your focus would automatically jump to the near edge of that screen instead of where you left off on the first one.It might not be 100% seamless at the transition/bezels but it would let you “warp” or jump between screens and to a different tracker on a different active screen. Using this method you would not have multiple trackers interfering with each other. Only the single tracker on the specific monitor you are facing at any given time would be active.
Hi,
I have been watching this thread for some time. I must say I don’t agree that a single tracker will not work across a large enough area to cover multiple screens. I have done it. I have 2 x 28″ screens. If I configure them in the Nvidia settings to be recognised by the operating system as one screen then the tracker will operate over both screens.The only problem with this is that it makes the centre of the viewable area in line with the bevel between monitors, which isn’t practical for most situations, still the tracker does work over the area. I have my tracker mounted to the right hand lower bevel on the left screen.
Perhaps I do not need the accuracy that some people do. I am still able to use a mouse. I use the screen tracker primarily to warp the mouse to where I am looking. It significantly reduces the amount of mouse movement required and helps prevent the wrist pain I get while working. Unfortunately, its hard to get used to working like this when only one screen is used with the tracker.
I appreciate you may not want to allow people to use the tracker in a way that they might have a negative experience. But why not simply allow people to do it, but warn them that the tracking will not be accurate over that distance. For many people like myself it will still work perfectly well.
Tobii just hates multiple monitors. Come on… how many YEARS has it been requested now? Since 2014 and 2016 on my nVidia surround support.
If Tobii would support multiple monitors I would buy it this second. But that will NEVER happen.
Maybe those that want such an item should create an open source project…
I think it could work with a separate tracker atop each screen, with a hot zone on each of the touching bezel sides of the screens where the focus would hop to the next screen over and pause the other tracker(s).
It would be expensive to buy one for each monitor though, especially if you have 3 screens. The hotzone-snapping / teleporting to the next screen would probably not be seamless enough for most types of triple screen games but it would be great for other multi screen uses like focusing on an app and making it active when hotkeyed.
In the years ahead we will probably be using less bulky VR-passthrough/AR/mixed reality headgear or eyewear that will track instead but that is aways off yet.
Hi, I guess multi monitor is like getting it to work on a very very large screen if it’s an extended display. Speaking of which, I’m trying to get mine to work on a 55″ screen and was wondering how you got yours to calibrate on your 48″? I’m having real trouble getting it to detect my eyes for all the dots…
You have a support article on this topic. But your software does not seem to calibrate correctly for my setup to get it to work for the center monitor. I can calibrate my single monitor before switching Eyefinity on, but then it deletes the calibration when switching Eyefinity on. I can choose to continue with calibration while Eyefinity is on, but the sensor is incorrectly sized for alignment with the center monitor. In addition, calibration fails to work properly when just looking at the center monitor for the points.
Your article indicates it’s possible to do tracking based on the center monitor, but the software is not allowing this to happen. It could be because it’s a very large resolution, but why not just cap the resolution to just the center screens resolution and continue with calibration so tracking will just be on the center screen.
https://help.tobii.com/hc/en-us/articles/209529429-Can-I-use-multiple-screens-
I have 3 x 4K monitors and with my latest video card upgrade, I can run all three monitors for simulation games with good performance at the following resolution: 11520×2160
This seems like an ideal product for multi monitors setup for simulation with 1×3 configurations to allow head tracking even if its just based on the center monitor.
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