Using Depth-Enhanced Spatial Transformation for Student Gaze Target Estimation in Dual-View Classroom Images

Dual-view gaze target estimation in classroom environments has not been thoroughly explored. Existing methods lack consideration of depth information, primarily focusing on 2D image information and neglecting the latent 3D spatial context, which could lead to suboptimal transformation and cause the gaze cone to intersect with an incorrect object. This paper introduces a novel dual-view gaze target estimation method tailored for classroom settings, leveraging depth-enhanced spatial transformations. By formulating a depth-enhanced 2D space, our method uses depth-enhanced spatial transformation to accurately project students’ gaze cones to the teacher-oriented image. Additionally, we collected a dataset named DVSGE, specifically for student gaze target estimation in dual-view classroom images. Experimental results demonstrate significant performance improvements of 9.8% in AUC and 19.9% in L2-Distance for our method, surpassing existing methods.