Continuous Mouse Movement

[bradon]

I have the Tobii eye tracker 5 and is there a function to have mouse warp, but I don’t like that you have to press a key to move the mouse, (kind of defeats the purpose).

Is there a way to have the Tobii send continuous mouse updates so the mouse always follows the gaze ?

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @bradon, thanks for your query. If you open the Tobii system Tray Icon, goto ‘Interactions’ ->
Interactions -> Mouse -> Warp On Key and set to ‘no key’ then the cursor will jump to your gaze location when the mouse is moved.

This should be what you are looking for, please do let us know if you have any further questions. Best Wishes.

[bradon]

we’ll not exactly, Unfortunately. I don’t want to have to tap or move the mouse to jump the gaze either.

I’d like continuous mouse movement – without having to use my hands at all.

Ideally the mouse position should just be able to follow the gaze all by itself.

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @bradon, okay I understand. Full mouse emulation is not a recommended (or supported) approach for several reasons.

Firstly, there is a limit of how accurate an eye tracker can be due to the inherent jittery movement of the human eye which will always be present even if you are focusing on one point.

Additionally, whilst you may look from one point to another.. the human eye only moves perceptively beyond 2 cm or so, making it unsuitable for the fine control a mouse requires. A possible workaround would be to make all Programs buttons and menus very large, but most software does not provide this functionality.

Accordingly, by combining the classical approach of mouse use and eye tracking one can get the best balance of speed and accuracy.

All this being said, the Tobii Dynavox is dedicated to enabling users to use eye tracking for full computer control and works to overcome the limitation I mentioned.

You can download for free one of their offerings that provide a mouse emulation you can try @ https://www.tobiidynavox.com/software/free-resources/gaze-point/
The Software has not yet been tested with the New ET5, so please let us know how you get on. Best Wishes.

[bradon]

Thanks @Grant.

for my applications its basically an art installation so the precision and fine tune control isn’t quite as much of a concern because it is generating more of an art impressionistic effect from the eye gaze data visualization type of thing. The mouse control is really just a convenient way to get the eye gaze screen coordinates into my application with little additional programming or SDK under the hood stuff.

Another alternative I could use if there was a universal OSC app that would stream the gaze position data through OSC messaging.

My application is more akin to that overlay gaze bubble thing, its more artistic and fun rather than functional. I just want to create my own types of effects.

[Grant [Tobii]]

Interesting project @bradon! Given your intentions, I think that the Dynavox mouse emulation Software coupled with some kind of painting software that does not require the mouse click to be depressed may be the easiest approach. Ideally however, you would want a SDK project using a blank canvas combined with gaze location tracking.

I saw a project like this https://www.codeproject.com/Tips/811495/Simple-Paint-Application-in-Csharp may be able to combine with the Tobii Interaction Library API.

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