Real-time head tracking from the deformation of eye contours using a piecewise affine camera

A computer vision based approach for human-computer interaction through hea d movements is presented and evaluated in a non-immersive virtual reality c ontext. Once intercepted and tracked in real-time using a piecewise affine camera model and affine-deformable eye contours, user head displacements ar e estimated and remapped onto the tridimensional graphic environment accord ing to a natural interface metaphor. Both the real-time performance of the tracker and the improved head parameter estimation accuracy - as compared t o the one obtainable using globally affine camera models - encourage the us e of this approach to support diverse advanced interaction scenarios and ap plications. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.