US 11,755,106 B1
Glint-assisted gaze tracker
Seyed Hesameddin Najafi Shoushtari, San Francisco, CA (US); Kuen-Han Lin, Mountain View, CA (US); and Yanghai Tsin, Palo Alto, CA (US)
Assigned to Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed by Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 9, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/931,093.
Application 17/931,093 is a continuation of application No. 16/914,081, filed on Jun. 26, 2020, granted, now 11,442,537.
Application 16/914,081 is a continuation of application No. 16/143,071, filed on Sep. 26, 2018, granted, now 10,698,481, issued on Jun. 30, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/564,985, filed on Sep. 28, 2017.
Int. Cl. G06F 3/01 (2006.01); G06T 19/00 (2011.01); G02B 27/00 (2006.01); G06V 10/44 (2022.01); G06V 40/19 (2022.01); G06V 40/18 (2022.01); G02B 27/01 (2006.01); G06V 20/20 (2022.01)
CPC G06F 3/013 (2013.01) [G02B 27/0093 (2013.01); G06T 19/006 (2013.01); G06V 10/44 (2022.01); G06V 40/19 (2022.01); G06V 40/193 (2022.01); G02B 27/0179 (2013.01); G02B 2027/0187 (2013.01); G06F 3/011 (2013.01); G06V 20/20 (2022.01); G06V 40/197 (2022.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A device, comprising:
a plurality of light sources configured to emit light towards an eye;
a camera;
a hot mirror configured to be positioned in front of the eye, wherein the camera is pointed towards the hot mirror and is configured to capture images of the eye reflected off the mirror;
a controller comprising one or more processors, wherein the controller is configured to:
detect two or more glints in an image of the eye reflected off the hot mirror and captured by the camera, wherein each glint is a reflection of one of the light sources on a cornea surface of the eye;
match the detected glints to corresponding ones of the light sources to generate two or more glint-light source matches;
estimate a cornea center of the eye based on the glint-light source matches; and
estimate a pupil center of the eye based at least in part on the estimated cornea center.