BU Computer Science Department - IVC Group

Head Tracker Download Page

Click here to download the head tracker.

This release is for the SGI IRIX 6.5 platform. The file you download is called headtracker.tar.gz. After you download it, type at the UNIX shell

gunzip headtracker.tar.gz
tar xf headtracker.tar

That will create a directory called headtracker, with the following contents:

glmain: The executable. It only takes one argument, the name of the movie file on which it is to perform head tracking. In this version, the gamma-light parameter is set to 1.0e+5 and the gamma-warp parameter is 1.0e+5 (for details see the publications). You should always run the executable from the directory in which it is located.
cmu_face_detector: This directory contains auxiliary data for the CMU face detector, developed by Henry A. Rowley. Our tracker uses the CMU face detector to initially locate the face before it starts tracking. Always keep this directory as a subdirectory of the directory in which glmain is located.
eigen_data: This directory contains auxiliary data for eigenface decomposition. Always keep this directory as a subdirectory of the directory in which glmain is located.
movies: This directory contains six sample movies, that you can use to test the executable.

For example, after you untar the file and you go to the headtracker directory, to run the program you can type

glmain movies/jal8.raw

A window should immediately pop up, and after some initialization you should be able to see the head being tracked in the sequence. As long as the program is running, the program window should not be covered by any other windows on the screen.

NOTE: Reading a movie file from the disk is currently the bottleneck in our system. Using our O2's we can achieve a frame rate of about 2 frames per second when we have to read the movie from a file. Using live input from a camera, we can achieve rates of up to 15 frames per second.

For a detailed description of the head tracking algorithms, please look at the following on-line publications.

For any questions or comments, please send e-mail to Vassilis Athitsos, at athitsos@cs.bu.edu .