Qualisys, a provider of motion capture technology, and Tobii Pro, provider of eye tracking research solutions, are integrating their respective technologies for combined analysis of eye and body movements. The goal of this integration is to help research professionals within healthcare, sports and psychology to obtain insights such as the visual strategy behind an athlete's body movements or a patient’s search pattern, key to improving sports performance, diagnosing visual-motor disorders or assessing progress in gait rehabilitation.
Morgan Larsson, Software Development Lead, Qualisys is saying, “Clearly there is a direct and natural relationship between motion capture and eye tracking technologies gives our customers a deeper understanding of the correlation between movement and gaze. This will improve performance, quality and safety in a wide variety of applications.”
The resulting data from motion capture and eye tracking can be streamed in real-time or exported for analysis, offering up new possibilities within sports, medical/psychology, and training/simulation applications.
Sports
Insights on hand-eye coordination extend the understanding of performance in sports. Visual feedback on gaze and motion patterns can be provided to help athletes improve their performance. According to the partners, knowledge of athletes' exact eye and body movements makes it possible to predict where injury may occur and develop methods for prevention.
Medical
Training and Simulation
Simulation of unexpected scenarios in controlled environments can use both human motion and gaze behavior to improve safety and performance. For example, observing scenarios of piloting vehicles, flight controllers, assembly, etc., to improve safety.
How It All Works Together
Eye tracking data is collected with the Tobii Pro Glasses 2, a wearable eye tracker with wireless live view function, equipped with a wide-angle HD scene camera, microphone, and four eye cameras taking up to 100 pictures per second. Markers are fitted to the body and on to the eye tracking glasses. The cameras track and register the movement of the markers and translates them into a computer-generated 3D wire frame model.
The integration then makes it possible to stream data in real-time from both technologies into the Qualisys Track Manager (QTM) software. Here the data can be visualized and the eye tracking and gaze vector data can be exported to various other analysis software such as MATLAB.
Apparently, these technologies are merely a technological extension of ancient practices, particularly those found in the martial arts. Simply put, keep your eyes on your opponent and they will tell you when and what may happen next. The two partners are now doing that electronically. Sometimes, simple is best. For more details, contact Qualisys and Tobii Pro.