Easy On The Eyes

Nvidia Develops LED-Based Gaze Tracking System to Speed Rendering

Using virtual reality can strain viewer’s eyes and put them off-balance while their brain is tricked into believing what it’s seeing is there.  According to a story by Jeremy Horowitz for venturebeat.com, all the top virtual reality headset makers agree that gaze tracking is a game changer for the next generation of VR hardware. With the ability to sense an eye’s position in real-time, computers can optimize detailed rendering and offer cursor controls without the need for hand or head movements.

Using LED to track eye movements, too, causes less negative impact on a user’s sense of sight. Researchers at Nvidia have come up with a novel solution that could enable the technology to become more widespread. In addition to high performance, the VR system is lightweight and inexpensive.

Nvidia’s new gaze tracker uses the capability of common LEDs — their ability to both emit and sense light — to simplify the process of determining the eye’s position relative to a display. Like other gaze tracking systems, the Nvidia system uses a ring of infrared LEDs to project unseen light into the eye for color-selective sensing from the same location.

For now, the gaze-sensing LED system is still in the prototype stage. The Tobii solutions found in HTC and Pico VR headsets, or the 7invensun alternative selected for Nreal Light are the closest current tech. But LED-based gaze tracking could make its way into the next generation of VR headsets, establishing new class of inexpensive and lightweight models with greater performance, if researchers can make the calibration process fast enough that users aren’t forced to wait.

For now, home VR/AR platform owners can play several free games and make virtual visits online.

read more at venturebeat.com