Possibilities for Eye-controlled Gaming

Published by: Patapata on 8th Jun 2011 | View all blogs by Patapata

Possibilities for Eye-controlled Gaming by Patricia Walling:

For the differently abled or people looking forward to the future of video games (I’m still looking for my VR, people), the possibilities of eye-controlled gaming are dazzling to behold. However, it can often be that technology surrounding eye-controlled video gaming can be less than eye-popping. In a recent development, using a process called electrooculography, people attach electrodes to their face around their eyes for the purpose of tracking their eye movements in order to play simple games like Whack-a-Mole. This is not exactly geared for the average gamer, who isn’t going to be interested in setting up electrodes and all kinds of gadgets in order to just sit down and play a game.

Another great example is from the University of Illinois, where engineering students developed a simple game involving 2-D sharks and minnows. The controls were manipulated by measuring the voltage across the eyeball of a gamer. When the device was working properly, it measured changes in the voltage of the eye as it moved, using those differences to direct the movement of a fishy avatar on screen. Though the device worked somewhat, their test subject received a shock to his eye and it was concluded that the system needed a great deal of refinement. The students published their research, but there is an enormous graphic on the report warning that the project is an electrical shock hazard.

Other tech billed as “gaming enhancements” require webcams with special programming to correctly interpret corneal reflections, which currently is iffy at best. Even someone in medical billing and coding could tell you that this could be less than useful, because eyes are designed to look at things, and it is not hardwired into our systems to control things with them. Studies at Dartmouth discovered that the eye is constantly moving, and that in certain situations these unconscious movements can accidentally resemble other deliberate control sequences. Imagine all the times you’d end up accidentally clicking advertising while browsing the Internet! That could potentially be really, really embarrassing.

In any case, perhaps re-imagining what eye-control means is what is necessary then. Also, integrating technology so that you don’t have to buy any peripherals, and making it easier for everyone to play all sorts of video games rather than just Whack-a-Mole, is something that must be kept in mind for designing a gamer-friendly experience. However, it’s possible that we might be moving towards something like that, especially in the field of mobile devices. It seems like these days everyone has an iPhone or something similar, and the touch screen is really useful and intuitive so of course the possibilities for gaming on mobile devices is huge. I mean, I can play Angry Birds with just my nose. Yet there are some new programs devised recently for the iPhone and iPad that I think will totally blow previous visually controlled tech out of the water.

Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay of Laboratory of Informatics at the EHCI Research Group in France are working on this fascinating program that uses the integrated camera to track the head movements of the user to make a 3-D experience. It’s not leaping out of the screen at you, but it’s really awesome all the same. Check it out!

Visually oriented tracking, especially with this added bonus of 3-D visuals, could make for some really awesome mobile games. Although Francone and Nigay’s program only tracks the head, there are already people working on fine-tuning such programs to track the movement of irises, such as Zdenek Kalal, whose Ph.D. thesis was on this very subject. Kalal’s program, called Predator, is not only able to learn to track all sorts of things other than eyes such as faces or different hand gestures at different angles and distances, but it’s also open source! It has even been lauded as being better than the Kinect at body tracking, and since it doesn’t require any specialized hardware other than a video camera, it would be extremely easy to port to a mobile phone or other console.

With this sort of thing going on, the possibilities have only just begun for visually controlled mobile gaming. Even if the eyes end up ultimately being too difficult to use as controllers, visually oriented tracking can be used in all sorts of applications. Better yet, if Predator becomes a universally applied program, the adaptability of it could go far beyond just eye control. It could even follow a pen held in the mouth as a mousing tool. Clearly it’s oriented more towards those who can move parts of their bodies more easily, but just think of the awesome 3-D racing game you could eventually play on your phone. No peripherals, no setup, just get out your mobile, start up the game, and move through immersive three dimensional environments with your eyes. If that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is (except perhaps virtual reality and hover cars).

For some more cool eye tracking games, videos, and news, take a look at these link! Thanks to Barrie for finding these for me :)

GameBase Eye-Gaze Games News and Reviews

GamerDads: " The dawn of the eyePad"

Engadget: " Eye Mario" (I love this, it must be super difficult to play though).