Head-turning approach to eye-tracking in immersive virtual environments

Reliable and unobtrusive eye tracking remains a technical challenge for immersive virtual environment, especially when Head Mounted Displays (HMD) are used for visualization and users are allowed to move freely in the environment. In this work, we provide experimental evidence that gaze direction can be safely approximated by user head rotation, in HMD-based Virtual Reality (VR) applications, where users actively interact with the environment. We discuss the application range of our approach and consider possible extensions.