Line-of-sight direction determination device and line-of-sight direction determination method

Abstract

A line-of-sight direction determination device includes: a line-symmetric position determiner that determines that the corneal reflection image of a left eye or a right eye is located at a line-symmetric position with respect to the center line of the pupils of the left and right eyes; and a line-of-sight direction determiner that determines, from the line-symmetric position determination result, a line-of-sight direction at a specific position including the installation position of an imaging unit or an irradiation unit at the substantially same position as the imaging unit. The line-of-sight direction determination device determines that the corneal reflection image is line symmetric and, from this line symmetry property, determines a specific line-of-sight direction.

1 - 7 . (canceled) 
     
     
         8 . A line-of-sight direction determining apparatus comprising:
 an image inputter that takes an image of a face;   a facial part detector that detects facial parts from the image of the face;   a face direction calculator that detects, as a face direction vector, a normal vector of a plane on which an outer corner of the right eye, an outer corner of the left eye and a middle point between corners of the mouth are present; and   a face/line-of-sight determiner that determines whether or not a direction of the face is directed toward a specific direction based on an inner product of the face direction vector and a vector in the specific direction, and determines whether a direction of a line of sight is directed toward the specific direction when it is determined that the direction of the face is directed toward the specific direction.   
     
     
         9 . A line-of-sight direction determining method comprising:
 taking an image of a face;   detecting facial parts from the image of the face;   detecting, as a face direction vector, a normal vector of a plane on which an outer corner of the right eye, an outer corner of the left eye and a middle point between corners of the mouth are present;   determining whether or not a direction of the face is directed toward a specific direction based on an inner product of the face direction vector and a vector in the specific direction; and   determining whether a direction of a line of sight is directed toward the specific direction when it is determined that the direction of the face is directed toward the specific direction.