Re: Feature proposal: Alternative input system based on low-cost webcam

[Piñeiro <apinheiro igalia com>]

On 10/25/2011 03:56 PM, Jan Jokela wrote:
> I think we are missing the important bit here. 
>
> Tracking your head with a webcam to drive a mouse results in a bad
> experience. It doesn't work even remotely well.

Some users already find this feature/application really useful.

> Someone will, in the future, figure out how to do this properly and
> then it won't be called an accessibility feature but something
> everyone will want to use.

It would be good to have it for general use for the feature. But for the
moment it is just a specific accessibility tool.

>
> I -think- that for this to work properly we'd need a bunch of things:
> first, we need to track not only head movement but also your eyes and
> several facial muscles so that we can have accurate tracking and hints
> about your

AFAIK, eViacam developers plans to add support for more facial gestures
in the future.

> intentions. Well, this requires cameras with resolutions much higher
> than VGA, which is the current standard for these. Then, someone needs
> to figure out how to track all these elements real-time with little
> cpu usage. As it is, we

With higher resolution cameras the behaviour would be better. But
please, read again the feature proposal name "Alternative input based
system based on *low-cost* webcam".

About performance, it is something that was always one of the priorities
for eViacam developers, and the reason that the configuration wizard
allows you to tweak so many parameters.

> can't even maintain a Mexican hat over ones head in Cheese without it
> lagging 3 seconds behind. And finally for this to work we'de need
> pretty good AI to be able to understand what you really want so that
> you don't end up sending a draft-mail just because you glanced at that
> gorgeous girl that just passed in front of you.

See my previous comment about performance.

BR

-- 
Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias