aframe-eyetracking-blink-controls-component

Using blink in MagicLeap eye tracking system to realize an action

Note that this is a pedagogical proof of concept. This is in no way intended to be used in a production ready environment but solely to show that

it is possible
the ECS architecture keeps on being relevant in WebXR
a pure javascript workflow for high end AR is possible including to the highest level of abstraction The component itself could be a lot richer and reliable but this was not the point then.

In practice it means this component gets executed by exokit running node on the MagicLeap with native bindings.

Code

AFRAME.registerComponent('blink', {
  init: function () { eyetracker = browser.magicleap.RequestEyeTracking() },
  // browser.magicleap made available via exokit
  tick: function() {
    if (!eyetracker) return
    if (eyetracker.eyes[0].blink){ /* do something */ }
    // cf https://github.com/webmixedreality/exokit/blob/master/docs/magicleap.md
  }
});

But why?!

Somebody asked me during FOSDEM what was AR good for. Honestly I won't pretend I know what an evolving set of technologies is good for but what I can do though is make suggestions :

paint in AR without having to use hands (could use A-painter) because you are physically unable to
overall interact in AR without having to use hands because you are busy doing other things e.g surgery and voice recognition is way too slow
detect blink to swap elements of a scene e.g a horror game
use blink to detect fatigue and suggest pauses without the HMD
estimate and correct vision problems cf e.g https://www.eyeskills.org

Overall though and as mentioned before the point is not to provide a complete list of ideas on how to use AR on the web but rather to show that it can be very easy for anybody who is not a developer to conceive then test radically new usages.

How to try it

install exokit on your MagicLeap
use the component on your AFrame page
remove the primivite from your scene
open the URL of your page on exokit (cf CLI instructions)
don't forget to blink!

How does it work

Video demo

Live link https://exokit.glitch.me/blinkbuilder.html

Unmodified code ran during the demo https://glitch.com/edit/#!/exokit?path=blinkbuilder.html:9:13

Tested only on exokit thanks to its MagicLeap bindinds.

1st component on Github published (0 code results on publication date). Presented Sunday February 3 at FOSDEM 2019 during High end augmented reality using Javascript. Please see the video recording and slides to better under the context and potential usage.

Fosdem talk

Showing meshing, eye tracking, hand tracking, plane detection from the same API.