A novel egocentric pointing system based on smart glasses

In this paper, we propose a novel, egocentric pointing system based on Google Glass which is equipped with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) and a near-eye camera, with the eye-pointing line passing through the lower left corner of the display. For a pointed target, the pointing (or ranging) algorithm is based on a distance-pixel curve established from the camera-eye (epipolar) geometry. Additional pointing algorithms for estimating gazing point on a planar surface are also developed by establishing another distance-pixel curve along the same epipolar line. Experiments show that less than 0.32° angular error in the egocentric pointing can be achieved for object distance ranging from 80cm to 178cm by the best estimation scheme, with slightly less accurate results (i.e. 0.58°) achievable by simpler estimation schemes.