HTC Vive introduces facial tracker and eye tracker to VR
Enhanced eye and facial tracking have been introduced in HTC VIVE’s Focus 3 Eye Tracker and Focus 3 Facial Tracker, allowing enhanced virtual collaboration and human interaction.
VIVE Focus 3 Facial Tracker makes it easy to naturally convey emotions and read intentions in real time, explained VIVE. Its mono tracking camera captures expressions through 38 blend shapes across the lips, jaw, cheeks, chin, teeth, and tongue to capture true-to-life facial expressions and mouth movements on avatars.
The 60Hz tracking rate and runtime optimised for facial tracking allows user to synchronise lips to voice with minimal latency and experience lifelike interactions in high fidelity. The VIVE Focus 3 Facial Tracker module seamlessly connects to VIVE Focus 3 headsets through the built-in USB Type-C port with no need for add-ons or adaptors.
Facial tracking can be used in improving “soft skills” in presentation coaching, customer service management and training. Users can track and improve emotional preparedness to achieve better real life outcomes in fields such as education, healthcare, human resources and creative industries.
The second introduction is the VIVE Focus 3 Eye Tracker which can access insightful data and reach a heightened level of VR immersion, said HTC VIVE.
Bringing realistic eye movements and blinks to virtual avatars delivers true to life virtual collaboration and improves human connections in VR through expressive, non-verbal interactions, HTC VIVE explained. Tracking and analysing eye movement, attention and focus, for example can help businesses access deeper user behaviour analysis.
The dual camera set up, with supporting IR illuminators, is capable of capturing data for gaze origin and direction, pupil size and position, and eye openness. The lightweight module attaches magnetically to the headset without impacting the balanced ergonomics. The adjustable Interpupillary distance (IPD) works with the VIVE Focus 3 headset to help users find the optimal viewing angle.
Focus 3 Eye Tracker allows the wearer to understand intentions and improve feedback, which can be used for training and education scenarios. Users can measure duration and locate direction with heat mapping and gaze tracking to gain insights about performance and interaction to improve outcomes. Focus 3 Eye Tracker also helps to understand how users naturally interact with a product and discover actionable insights about user intent.
Both Focus 3 Eye Tracker and Focus 3 Facial Tracker support Unity, Unreal Game Engine, and Native. There is also the WaveSDK software development kit and OpenXR support is coming soon. It is also seamless to stream content from a PC via VIVE Business Streaming.
