Tobii has becomes one of the more recognised names in the virtual reality (VR) eye-tracking sector, and now the company has turns its attention towards helping companies get the most out of eye-tracking technology with a new analytical tool called Tobii Pro VR Analytics.
Eye-tracking has a number of uses within VR, and access to the information generated by eye-tracking will enable businesses to better tailor products and services for specific use-cases.
Tobii have listed a variety of potential uses for the analytics tool, such as identifying what customers in a virtual retail setting direct their attention towards, or a manufacturing company can determine how workers respond to different training scenarios.
For more critical areas, such as healthcare, in training surgeons, their awareness can be tracked, allowing for the development of visual awareness skills without potential risk to a patient. In the area of safety, the eye-tracking analytics can be used during building design to determine optimal placement of signage and emergency exits.
“Using eye tracking within a VR environment helps us better understand how people navigate around a space. We can design better wayfinding systems and start to explore issues much earlier”, said David Watts, Managing Director, CCD Design & Ergonomics. “We want to bring evidence into the design process, the visualizations tell us what people actually look at and how their attention is drawn to different design interventions we make. This methodology is so much more powerful than relying on our own intuition about what does and doesn’t work. It also provides a great visual record to demonstrate behaviors to others in the design team”
The Tobii Pro VR Analytics tool embeds into existing Unity environments and is not platform specific, so companies can integrate the tool into existing hardware set-ups. Further information can be found on the Tobii website.
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