A Low Cost Eye Tracking System For Monitoring Eye Fixation

The ability to track human eye movements represent a unique way of studying the way we process visual information as we engaged in various tasks in real time. Numerous disciplines in scientific researches such as computer science, neuroscience and experimental psychology can benefit from eye tracking techniques to address the quantitative tasks underlying cognitive processes and visual processes. Cognitive psychologists, reading researchers, usability analysts, sports scientists, electrical engineers, psycholinguists, neurophysiologists, and others, all have a vested interest in eye tracking for different reasons. Unfortunately, while there have been significant advances in eye-tracking technology, the cost of commercial systems remains prohibitive for broad use. Even in the case of disabled users, the number of people who are able to afford such systems is a small fraction of those who could benefit from the technology.The Goal of this thesis is to develop a low cost Eye Tracking system using off-the shelf components that can be purchased at local stores. The tracker will be cheaper than the existing systems in the market, easy to use, scalable and compatible with all major Operating systems. The capture software will utilize existing open-source, cross-platform software tools for computer vision, image manipulation and graphical user interface design. The tracker will be able to monitor user’s fixation points (gaze points) in real time and store gaze information on the local storage for further analysis.This thesis might be of particular interest for those who want to explore human cognitive behavior and it will somehow provide guidelines for designers of future eye tracking systems.