Fast eye movement and panning of view

[Zplintz Zee]

I am new to the eyeX and I am currently using it primarily with Elite Dangerous but I imagine this is something that applies to many games.

If my eyes are focussed on an object in the 3d world and it moves across the screen, my eyes track and the view point tracks beautifully. However if my focus jumps from one object to another (as eyes do naturally), my eyes would in the real world do this in an instant and my brain blank out the movement in between – making it appear seamless.

EyeX (obviously) cannot do this, so you see the action/movement happening on the screen. At the moment it seems that the movement happens in very straight lines. I wondered if this might look/feel better if it happened in a smoother way? Maybe curving towards the target object (perhaps an options to choose straight line or an amount of curvature)?

Regards,
Zplintz

[Henrik [Tobii]]

This will be available in the 1.2 release. I’ve added a slider that controls how much “inertia” (which probably describes the experience the best) your gaze point should have. The main reason for adding this was to replicate the feeling of version 1.0.2 in ED (which used VJoy) but it is essentially what you describe.

[Zplintz Zee]

You sir, are a star. I look forward to seeing (and testing if you need a beta tester) this version. 🙂

[James Harford]

May I suggest that you reduce the “inertia” effect as the tracked object approaches screen center?

It seems the problem described by the OP is that it is hard for eyes to track an object that suddenly jerks into motion upon glancing at it. Hence initially giving the object inertia is useful. But as a tracked object enters the central region of low speed sensitivity or “deadzone”, inertia is not needed, as the object naturally slows smoothly to a stop. Inertia within the deadzone could actually be unhelpful since it resists this slowing and if the speed slider is too high this momentum can carry the object completely through the deadzone past screen center, resulting in a “bounce” or even an oscillation about screen center. I certainly observed this effect when I used the 1.0.2 version, and could only solve it by setting an otherwise perfectly fine speed setting to a lower value.

[Ben Johnson]

This sounds like a really good idea since i am struggling with the exact same problems described. Having an inertia setting would be very helpful.

[Henrik [Tobii]]

May I suggest that you reduce the “inertia” effect as the tracked object approaches screen center?

Good point. We probably wont’ be able to get into the upcoming update (1.2) but we’ll definitely take a look at it. We’ve also made a number of other improvements that among other things should reduce things such as arcing (camera transitioning along an arc instead of a straight line) and oscillations (what you’ve described above).

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