[Kde-accessibility] Eye pointing devices

[Bill Haneman]

Olaf Jan Schmidt wrote:

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>Hi!
>
>Has anyone experiences with eye pointing devices under Linux?
>
Hi Olaf and Gunnar:

Unfortunately I do not know of any eye-trackers available for Linux; I 
am only aware of Windows-based systems.  In theory a windows PC could be 
used to operate the eye tracker, which could be connected via a serial 
connection to a Linux box.

Eye trackers can be fatiguing for users with good optical muscle 
control, so this may be a difficult solution, and in any case it's 
expensive.  If at all possible, I would recommend trying a head-tracking 
system such as the Madentec "Tracker One".

There are other possibilities, such as devices which detect changes in 
skin conductivity, etc. to trigger switches.  If your mother can control 
her blinking without too much fatigue, there are "headbands" which 
detect blinks.  These are not off-the-shelf items, unfortunately, they 
are research items.

My guess is that some sort of switch-based device, with GOK used in 
scanning mode, is your best option.  The trick is finding a suitable 
method of triggering the switch.

You might contact the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology 
Research Center to see if they have experience with input devices for 
situations such as your mother's.  http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/
David Bolter of GOK (david dot bolter at utoronto dot ca) is probably 
out of the office for a couple of days, I don't know, but it's worth 
contacting him; he may be able to point you to the right researcher(s).

best regards,

Bill

>We need to set up such a system for our mother within a few weeks (for 
>GOK+KMouth), and the doctors don't even know that eye pointing devices 
>exist, so they are no help.
>
>Any information (even if it just a link to a page you remember seeing 
>once) would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Olaf
>
>- -- 
>Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility Project
>KDEAP co-maintainer, maintainer of http://accessibility.kde.org
>
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