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Boosting speed- and accuracy of gradient based dark pupil tracking using vectorization and differential evolution

Published: 25 June 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Gradient based dark pupil tracking [Timm and Barth 2011] is a simple and robust algorithm for pupil center estimation. The algorithm's time complexity of O(n4) can be tackled by applying a two-stage process (coarse center estimation followed by a windowed refinement), as well as by optimizing and parallelizing code using cache-friendly data structures, vector-extensions of modern CPU's and GPU acceleration. We could achieve a substantial speed up compared to a non-optimized implementation: 12x using vector extensions and 65x using a GPU. Further, the two-stage process combined with parameter optimization using differential evolution considerably increased the accuracy of the algorithm. We evaluated our implementation using the "Labelled pupils the wild" data set. The percentage of frames with a pixel error below 15px increased from 28% to 72%, surpassing algorithmically more complex algorithms like ExCuse (64%) and catching up with recent algorithms like PuRe (87%).

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Improving Eye-Tracking Data Quality: A Framework for Reproducible Evaluation of Detection AlgorithmsSensors10.3390/s2409268824:9(2688)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
  • (2019)Towards an SSVEP-BCI Controlled Smart Home2019 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC)10.1109/SMC.2019.8914668(2737-2742)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2019

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  1. Boosting speed- and accuracy of gradient based dark pupil tracking using vectorization and differential evolution

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ETRA '19: Proceedings of the 11th ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications
    June 2019
    623 pages
    ISBN:9781450367097
    DOI:10.1145/3314111
    Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM acknowledges that this contribution was authored or co-authored by an employee, contractor or affiliate of a national government. As such, the Government retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free right to publish or reproduce this article, or to allow others to do so, for Government purposes only.

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    Published: 25 June 2019

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    Author Tags

    1. OpenCL
    2. dark pupil tracking
    3. differential evolution
    4. vector extensions

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    • (2024)Improving Eye-Tracking Data Quality: A Framework for Reproducible Evaluation of Detection AlgorithmsSensors10.3390/s2409268824:9(2688)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
    • (2019)Towards an SSVEP-BCI Controlled Smart Home2019 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC)10.1109/SMC.2019.8914668(2737-2742)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2019

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