eViacam - Controlling Your Mouse with Your Head

{sidebar id=1}How often do people with severe physical disabilities think about the possibilities to control their computer and videogames? To me, it happens almost daily. Moving my mouse arrow horizontally is not very easy for me.

Maybe the problem occurs because I have a 26 inch monitor which I use at 1920x1200. Moving from one end of the screen to the other sometimes appears as if I made a journey around the word.

I turn the trackball around and around and around until my thumb gets sore.  In fact, sometimes I think that my dad could buy a shotgun, run in the woods and capture a squirrel for me, which I well; my father that is, could then put in a little cage above the trackball. Then the only thing I would have to do is to activate the voice recognition function of the squirrel to finish my journey around the world (screen) in milliseconds.

Have you ever seen a squirrel running around?  Man, they are quick!

But hey, what do my tired eyes see on one of my ever-so often journeys through the Internet?

There is this company for making the poor disabled even poorer. It's a company that specialized in machinery for disabled people so they can have access to their computers. That's a very noble intention but they use high-tech. Oh, it's rather medium-high-tech or better middle-tech.

Who cares, what I want to say is that stuff is extremely expensive. I bet it is so expensive because... because... because it's not cheap.

Or you could use this other solution as it is low-tech and that's the good thing about it. Everybody can afford it. But the software is high-tech, I think. Because it works like a charm.

The solution is simple and completely free, if you already own a WebCam that can output 30 frames a second. If not, it shouldn't kill your finances, just run out to your local Wal-Mart and get one for 20 to 40 bucks and you're done.

30 frames are not necessarily needed. Lower frame rates will just result in slightly edgier movement. This has to do with how often eViacam can update the position of your mouse arrow. The more frames, the smoother mouse movement.

Now go to http://eviacam.sourceforge.net/ and download the software Enable Viacam. It is an open source program, so it's free of charge; eViacam is based on facial mouse, a former commercial product, which has been discontinued in favor for the open source project eViacam.

The program offers a lot of functions such as automated clicking, automated face following, adjustment of movement speeds, a quick access key for your favorite on-screen keyboard, freely configurable working area [in percent], acceleration muItiplier and many more. One very good addition is the click bar that lets you choose how eViacam works in auto click mode. You can choose between on or off, left or right, dragging and double-clicking.

Adjusting the movement options can take a little while because every user has different capabilities. But the good news is that even slight movement is recognized so you don't have to turn your head very much by navigating your mouse.

Let's talk about gaming with eViacam. Two words: it works.

For example, a first-person shooter shows that you have to get used to this kind of control scheme. Low frame rates make quite jittery camera movement. It's no huge issue, but it can be annoying for some.

Another issue is that after playing for a while you might not know where the middle of the screen is located face-wise. I sometimes happened to end up stuck on one side of the screen because I could not move my head any further in the desired direction. It's no real problem. Just turn your head back to your resting position. Most likely your character figure will turn around rapidly. Once you have come back to your resting position it is easy to resume playing.

Here you might want to make use of the working area configuration. Say, you don't want your figure to look up and down. Just restrict the vertical working area to 0%. Now you only can look left and right [move the mouse left and right].

Some last words: make sure that your face is well lit. The camera needs to see you properly; otherwise movement will be very slow. Auto click is a function you have to get used to. Be careful what you do with folders and files while using it, especially in the beginning.

You can use your mouse at the same time as you use eViacam. Making tiny movements with it is not that easy. Very short nodding or shaking of the head to the left or right will help. And if it doesn't, use your mouse for small corrections

Enable Viacam has made my life much easier not only for gaming but for controlling Windows as well.

No squirrel was killed or harmed in the making of this article.