Eye Gaze Tracking with Google Cardboard Using Purkinje Images

Mobile phone-based Virtual Reality (VR) is rapidly growing as a platform for stereoscopic 3D and non-3D digital content and applications. The ability to track eye gaze in these devices would be a tremendous opportunity on two fronts: firstly, as an interaction technique, where interaction is currently awkward and limited, and secondly, for studying human visual behavior. We propose a method to add eye gaze tracking to these existing devices using their on-board display and camera hardware, with a minor modification to the headset enclosure. We present a proof-of-concept implementation of the technique and show results demonstrating its feasibility. The software we have developed will be made available as open source to benefit the research community.