Applications of vision-based attention guided perceptive devices to aware environments

Abstract. This paper discusses a computer vision based approach for enhancing a physical environment with machine perception. Using techniques for assess-ing the distance and orientation of a target from the camera, we detect user pres-ence and estimate whether an object of interest is the focus of attention of the user. Our solution uses low-cost cameras and is designed to be robust to light-ing variations typical of home and work environments. We argue why this ap-proach is a useful component for the incremental construction of aware envi-ronments and discuss some practical applications of using such a system