Line of sight detecting device, and equipment comprising the device
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorAkira Akashi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A line of sight detecting device which detects the line of sight of the user. The device includes a determination unit for determining whether the line of sight detection is successful or not. An estimation unit estimates the cause of failure if line of sight detection can not be carried out. A notification unit provides information about the cause of failure of the line of sight detection. The information being estimated by the estimation unit.
Claims38
A device for detecting a line of sight of an observer who observes an object through a view finder, said device comprising:
- a) detection means for detecting the line of sight;
- b) determination means for determining whether or not a line of sight detection is successful;
- c) estimation means for estimating a cause of a failure of line of sight detection when said determination means determines that the line of sight detection failed;
- and
- d) notification means for providing the observer with a notification in the view finder which indicates the cause of the failure of line of sight detection estimated by said estimation means.
A device for detecting a line of sight of an observer who observes an object through a view finder, said device comprising:
- a) illumination means for illuminating an eye ball;
- b) light receiving means for receiving an eye ball image illuminated by said illumination means;
- c) characteristic image extraction means for extracting a characteristic image from the eye ball image received by said light receiving means;
- d) calculation means for calculating a line of sight on the basis of said characteristic image;
- e) determination means for determining reliability of a line of sight detection result on the basis of said characteristic image;
- f) estimation means for, when said determination means determines that said reliability is low, estimating a cause of said low reliability;
- and
- g) notification means for providing the observer with a notification in the view finder which indicates the cause of said low reliability estimated by said estimation means.
An apparatus having a line of sight detecting device, comprising:
- a view finder for observing an object;
- detection means for detecting the line of sight of an observer who is observing an object through said view finder;
- control means for controlling a predetermined operation in accordance with a line of sight detection result;
- determination means for determining whether line of sight detection meets with success or failure;
- estimation means for estimating a cause of a failure of line of sight detection when said determination means determines that the line of sight detection failed;
- and
- notification means for providing the observer with a notification in said view finder which indicates the cause of the failure of line of sight detection estimated by said estimation means.
A device for detecting a line of sight of an observer who observes an object through a view finder, said device comprising:
- a) detection means for detecting a line of sight by receiving an eye ball image;
- and
- b) indication means for indicating information in the view finder associated with a detection accuracy of said detection means, said indication means being capable of indicating one of a plurality of indications which correspond to the causes of the detection accuracy of said detection means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.