Binocular eye-tracking for the control of a 3D immersive multimedia user interface

In this paper, we present an innovative approach to design a gaze-controlled Multimedia User Interface for modern, immersive headsets. The wide-spread availability of consumer grade Virtual Reality Head Mounted Displays such as the Oculus RiftTM transformed VR to a commodity available for everyday use. However, Virtual Environments require new paradigms of User Interfaces, since standard 2D interfaces are designed to be viewed from a static vantage point only, e.g. the computer screen. Additionally, traditional input methods such as the keyboard and mouse are hard to manipulate when the user wears a Head Mounted Display. We present a 3D Multimedia User Interface based on eye-tracking and develop six applications which cover commonly operated actions of everyday computing such as mail composing and multimedia viewing. We perform a user study to evaluate our system by acquiring both quantitative and qualitative data. The study indicated that users make less type errors while operating the eye-controlled interface compared to using the standard keyboard during immersive viewing. Subjects stated that they enjoyed the eye-tracking 3D interface more than the keyboard/mouse combination.