Heart rate pulse detection through eyeball?

[Robert_Oschler]

Hello all,

Interesting article on RealSense enabled game called Nevermind.  In the article they say they are detecting the user's pulse via their eyeball image using the RealSense camera.  Does anybody know how they are doing this? 

http://sdtimes.com/intel-hopes-realsense-inspires-developers/

It would be great if that was a standard SDK feature.

[MartyG]

You may get some clues by looking at the biological information that inspired the feature by googling for 'heart pulse eyeball'.  Apparently, the eye does indeed pulse harder when stress is raised.

I'm not sure it provides an accurate reading of actual heart rate, as the pulsing is caused by the blood arteries in the eye, apparently.  Back in May 2014 though, in the early days of RealSense, Intel were suggesting that the Infra-Red (IR) function could be used to work out heart-rate by detecting the color of blood-flow under the skin.

If I were to make a guess, I wonder if the developers of that game are also using IR to measure the color of the blood in the eye.  I'm not sure the camera's face-tracking is sensitive enough to detect the actual physical pulsing of the eye.

So I would begin your investigation with the IR detection feature of the camera.

[Colleen_C_Intel]

The R2 RealSense SDK contains this feature as part of the Face modules:  Pulse estimation tracks subtle change in face skin color over time and estimates the person's pulse rate. The algorithmic range shows as 30-60cm on the F200. And you can read samples at
https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/realsense/camera-sdk/2014gold/documentation/html/manuals_facial_expression_data_2.html

[MartyG]

Thanks so much for the information and link, Colleen.  ^_^