Towards a Multi-camera Mouse-replacement Interface

We present our efforts towards a multi-camera mouse-replacement system for computer users with severe motion impairments. We have worked with individuals with cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis who use a publiclyavailable interface that tracks the user’s head movements with a single video camera and translates them into mouse pointer coordinates on the screen. To address the problem that the interface can lose track of the user’s facial feature due to occlusion or spastic movements, we started to develop a multi-camera interface. Our multi-camera capture system can record synchronized images from multiple cameras and automatically analyze the camera arrangement. We recorded 15 subjects while they were conducting a hands-free interaction experiment. We reconstructed via stereoscopy the three-dimensional movement trajectories of various facial features. Our analysis shows that single-camera interfaces based on twodimensional feature tracking neglect to take into account the substantial feature movement in the third dimension.