System Recommendations

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Tobii T/X series Eye Trackers and Tobii Studio Software

INTRODUCTION RECOMMENDED SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS

Single Screen Setup Local Live Viewer Remote Live Viewer Tobii X120 Eye Tracker Setups
Monitor or screen Physical objects and scene camera setup

3 4
4 6 7 9
9 10

Advanced Setups
External video recording RGB/VGA source Tobii / E-Prime integration setup

11
11 13

COMPONENT RECOMMENDATIONS

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System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Introduction
The Tobii Eye Trackers and the Tobii Studio software can be configured in many different ways. Also, the Tobii Studio software incorporates much more than just recording of eye tracking data, including various video and audio streams and integration with other software and hardware. Altogether, this offers a highly flexible system, which can be configured to optimally fit the needs of different testing purposes. This document describes recommended system configurations when using Tobii Eye Tracker hardware and Tobii Studio software, as well as current recommendations for components that form part of these systems/solutions. Version information As performance and product availability of many of these components change and evolve rapidly, the contents of this document are subject to constant and rapid change. Therefore, always make sure that you have the most current version available when deciding for a system configuration. The latest version of this document can always be downloaded from the Tobii website. This is version 1.0.0 of the System Recommendation document, which is current per 2007-29. Rev 1.0.0 Date 2007-05-29 Comment First version Changed by RKN

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Recommended System Configurations

The following chapters describe a number of recommended system configurations which are suitable for different situations. Your particular needs may of course differ from these standard configurations, but they should give valuable insights in any event. For specific information about custom configurations, or detail questions on the system configurations, please contact your Tobii sales representative, or Tobii technical support at support@tobii.com.

Single Screen Setup

This basic setup is the most simple setup when using on screen stimuli, such as images, movies, web or screen for advertising & usability testing, psychology research, reading research etc The pictures below illustrate the single screen setup with the two eye tracker connection alternatives using a USB-LAN adapter and a network connection. To get a portable lab replace the computer in the setup drawing with a laptop or shuttle computer. Option 1 with Eye Tracker connection via USB-LAN

Test station
T60 Eye Tracker

RGB cable

USB Adapter

Graphics card

USB ports

USB Port

Computer with Tobii Studio Basic, Professional or Enterprise Edition

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Option 2 with Eye Tracker connection via local network

Test station
T60 Eye Tracker

RGB cable

Network*

Graphics card

USB ports

Network card

Computer with Tobii Studio Basic, Professional and Enterprise Edition

* The box marked Network can be either the company network or a router. The Eye Tracker can also be connected directly to the Network card in the computer, Peer-to-peer; in this case this box is ignored.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Local Live Viewer

The below setup is used when the test is to be supervised from a screen next to the eye tracker setup. This test setup is suitable when using on screen stimuli, such as images, movies, web or screen for advertising & usability testing, psychology research, reading research etc. In a lot of studies it is important to see the participants reactions and record the conversation between test leader and test participant as well as using think-aloud. The setup below includes the user camera and user sound. Both the user camera and the user audio are optional. An alternative to using the adapter in the setup drawing is to connect the eye tracker to a local network, see more under the single screen setup option. To get a portable lab replace the computer in the setup drawing with a laptop or shuttle computer.
Optional Live Viewer

Test station
T60 Eye Tracker

Standard computer monitor RGB Cable User camera RGB cable Keyboard Mouse Graphics card USB ports

USB Adapter* User sound USB Port*

USB ports

Computer with Tobii Studio Professional or Enterprise Edition

* The eye tracker can be connected directly to the Network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Remote Live Viewer

This setup is used when the test should be supervised and/or controlled from one or more remote stations. It can be a computer in the next room where a supervisor is sitting and a computer connected to a white screen for remote viewing for customers etc. This test setup is suitable when using on screen stimuli, such as images, movies, web or screen for advertising & usability testing, psychology research, reading research etc. In a lot of studies it is important to see the participants reactions and record the conversation between test leader and test participant as well as using think-aloud. Both the user camera and the user audio are optional. An alternative to using the adapter in the setup drawing is to connect the eye tracker to a local network, see more under the single screen setup option. To get a portable lab replace the computer in the setup drawing with a laptop or shuttle computer.
Remote Live Viewer Test station
T60 Eye Tracker

Standard computer monitor RGB Cable

User camera
RGB cable

User sound USB ports

Keyboard Mouse USB ports Graphics card

USB Adapter* USB ports Network Network card

Graphics card

Computer with USB Extension cable Tobii Studio Network Logger card

Computer with Tobii Studio Enterprise Edition

* The eye tracker can also be connected directly to the network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

For Tobii Studio more than one remote viewer can take part of the testing.

Control Station

(Optional) Remote Viewing Stations

(using Tobii Studio Logger)

Test Station

Standard computer monitor RGB Cable

T60 Eye Tracker

Keyboard Mouse
RGB cable

User camera USB ports

User sound

USB ports

Graphics card

Graphics card Network* Network card

Computer with Network USB Studio Extension cable Tobii card Logger

Computer with Tobii Studio Enterprise

* The box marked Network can be either the company network or a router.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

Tobii X120 Eye Tracker Setups

Monitor or projection screen The Tobii X120 Eye Tracker allows for eye tracking using multiple stimuli types such as TV, monitor and projection screen. In the drawing a monitor is shown, but it can be replaced by a TV or projection screen as long as the input comes from the computer. In a lot of studies it is important to see the participants reactions and record the conversation between test leader and test participant as well as using think-aloud. The setups below do not include the user camera and user sound; see more in the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker live viewer setup. To use the user camera and sound option or the Live Viewer in Tobii Studio a Professional or Enterprise edition of the software is required. Both the user camera and the user audio are optional.
Live Viewer Test station
RGB Cable

Standard computer monitor

X120 Eye Tracker

RGB Cable

USB Adapter* Keyboard Mouse USB Port Graphics card USB ports

Computer with Tobii Studio

* The eye tracker can also be connected directly to the network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Physical objects and scene camera setup The scene camera setup is suitable when using a Tobii X120 Eye Tracker for recording and analysis of eye tracking data, when the stimulus is a physical object, for instance an object on a table or a PDA. Please refer to the Tobii X120 Eye Tracker Quick Guide for precise configuring of the geometry in a Tobii X120 Eye Tracker setup. This scene camera functionality will become available in Tobii Studio Profession during Fall 2007. In the meantime ClearView could be used.
Controller Test setup
Tracking Stimuli

Standard computer monitor Scene Camera RGB Cable

X120 Eye Tracker

USB Adapter*

Keyboard Mouse Video Capture Card Graphics card USB ports USB Port*

Computer with ClearView

* The eye tracker can also be connected directly to the network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Advanced Setups
External video recording RGB/VGA source This setup is suitable when using a Tobii Eye Tracking system for analysis of eye tracking data when the stimulus is presented from a separate computer or some other type of RGB or VGA source. This could for instance be when doing usability testing on a computer game, or even when stimulus is presented on a computer running a different operating system such as OSX, Linux or Solaris. Please note that if the external application runs under Windows operating system, and does not make use of 3D graphics acceleration, it may be more suitable and less complex to instead run this on the same computer as ClearView, and use the Screen Recording option in ClearView or Tobii Studio. For this setup, the image from the ClearView computer has to displayed on the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker display during calibration (to display the calibration points), whereas the external stimulus computer should be shown on the Tobii Eye Tracker display during the actual test. Therefore, both computers have to be connected to the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker. To switch between the inputs press the source button on the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker front. The video shown on the eye tracker display also has to be sent to ClearView to record the video stream and synchronize it with the gaze data. If the stimulus is presented from an analogue video source, for instance a VCR or an analogue video camera, it is possible to use a similar setup with slightly modified components. The External video functionality will also become available in Tobii Studio Profession during Fall 2007.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Tobii T60 Eye Tracker USB Adapter*

Primary screen RGB Cable Keyboard USB Port* USB ports Mouse

Secondary screen

Dual head graphics card

Stimulus USB Presentation ports Computer

RGB Capture card Dual Head graphics card

ClearView Computer

* The eye tracker can also be connected directly to the network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

There are two monitor ports on the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker, one VGA and one DVI connector. If all cables used in the setup are VGA cables a VGA-DVI adapter can be used. To show the image from the stimulus computer on a separate supervisor screen use a splitter between the stimulus computer and the stimulus presentation screen. A splitter can also be used to split the signal to the RGB capture card and the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker monitor if a laptop or other computer with a single head graphics card is used.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Tobii / E-Prime integration setup E-Prime is a leading software package for designing and conducting psychological experiments available from Psychology Software Tools. There is an extensive package called E-Prime extensions for Tobii for integrating the E-Prime software with the Tobii eye tracking system. This enables you to use E-Prime and E-Basic to design sophisticated stimulus, for instance to create gaze-contingent, conditional and counter-balanced experiments. The Tobii extensions for E-Prime offer a set of native E-Prime objects tailored for the Tobii eye tracking system. These offer functions on two different levels: TET level In this mode, E-Prime controls the Tobii Eye Tracker Server directly, without the need for using ClearView at all. E-Prime performs calibrations, collects gaze data and saves this to file.

ClearView level In this mode, E-Prime remote controls ClearView. Timing is synchronized between E-Prime and ClearView, data is collected by both E-Prime and/or ClearView, and ClearView can also be used for data visualization and analysis. It is suitable to place the E-Prime software on a separate computer, and have this communicate with the Tobii Eye Tracker Server and ClearView software over TCP/IP. An RGB capture card may be used to capture a video of the stimulus presented by E-Prime into ClearView for visualizations and post-recording analysis. For more information about E-Prime, please visit www.pstnet.com.

Tobii T60 Eye Tracker USB Adapter*

Primary screen RGB Cable Keyboard USB Port* USB ports Mouse Dual head graphics card

Secondary screen USB ports

ClearView Computer

RGB Capture card

E-Prime computer
RGB splitter Dual head graphics card

* The eye tracker can also be connected directly to the network instead of using the USB Adapter. See the single screen setup for more information.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Component Recommendations
The below section lists all types of components shown in the System Configurations chapter, with suggestions for specific product items. These items are tested by Tobii, and most of them can be purchased directly from Tobii. For specific information about particular components, please contact the component manufacturer, your Tobii sales representative, or Tobii technical support at support@tobii.com. Due to the fact that most of these components are manufactured by others than Tobii, and that their availability, specifications and functionality may chance without notice, Tobii does not accept any liability for performance or interoperability between the components and Tobii eye tracker hardware and software.

Item

Description

Recommended model

Note

Other tested models No testing has been done on Windows XP64 platforms, so please avoid these.

Single core stationary computer

This is the recommended computer setup for normal applications such as still image testing, movie testing, screen recording and web usability testing

Intel Pentium 4 processor with hyper threading Min 3.6 GHz CPU Min 1 GB RAM Minimum 1 PCI Express slot Minimum 3 additional PCI slots Minimum 4 USB ports Windows XP (not XP x64 edition)

HP machines are offered by Tobii, but only with English keyboard and operating system

Dual core stationary computer

This is the recommended computer setup for extreme applications, in particular movie testing where loss of any video frames is a big issue and web testing using high quality user camera, live viewer and where some sluggishness in the browser is not acceptable

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition Min 2.67 GHz CPU or Core 2 Duo Min 1.83 GHz CPU Min 1 GB RAM Minimum 1 PCI Express slot Minimum 3 additional PCI slots Minimum 4 USB ports Windows XP (not x64 edition)

A Precision 390 is offered by Tobii with any language configuration

No testing has been done on Windows XP64 platforms, so please avoid these.

Laptop computer

Recommended computer specifications for portable lab when using laptop.

Intel Centrino Duo Processor Min 1.83 GHz CPU Min 1 GB RAM

Note! If purchased from Tobii, we only offer Swedish operating system and keyboard

If using a widescreen laptop make sure it can be set to non wide-screen output for the eye tracker screen.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

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Item

Description

Recommended model

Note

Other tested models

Shuttle type stationary computer

This is the recommended computer for portable lab when using shuttle type system.

Intel Pentium 4 processor with hyper threading Min 3.6 GHz CPU Min 1 GB RAM Minimum 1 PCI slot Minimum 4 USB ports Windows XP (not XP x64 edition)

Shuttle type systems are not offered by Tobii

USB Network Adapter

This adapter is sent with the eye tracker. It is used to connect the network cable from the eye tracker to a USB port on the computer.

LINKSYS Compact USB 2.0 Network Adapter

The device is shipped with the eye tracker. Contact Tobii for additional or new units.

Dual head graphics card

To display control view on one display and subject view on another when using Tobii Studio. Such a setup is recommended for most uses of Tobii Studio.

For computers with AGP slot we recommend Matrox G550 For computers with PCI Express slot we recommend ASUS EXTREME N6200GE 128MB PCI-EXPRESS

Most Dual head graphics cards with nVidia chipsets will work. Make sure that they are of appropriate standard to fit the computer (AGP or PCI Express). This accessory is normally used for the Scene camera stimuli which can only be used in ClearView. Most video capture cards with S-video or Composite in should work, although not guaranteed.

Analogue video capture card

To capture video from an analogue source, for instance from scene camera or user camera, with S-video or composite video connections To capture high-quality video from RGB source. For video capture from EPrime, computer games and other RGB sources when using external video setups. Provides accurate timing and good image quality

Video capture card Viewcast Osprey 230

VGA Capture Card

Datapath Vision RGB Pro 1

This accessory is normally used for the External Video stimuli which can only be used in ClearView. The functionality will be added in Tobii Studio in the future.

Monitor arm

To position the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker in a flexible way

Ergotron LX series

The arm can be ordered from Tobii

USB extension cable

To attach keyboard or mouse from a long distance

Any standard active USB extension cable should work

Long monitor cable

To place control view monitor at long distance away from Tobii Studio computer

Any standard long monitor cables work

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.

16

Item

Description

Recommended model

Note

Other tested models Most other DV cameras with Svideo output should work

S-video camera

Standard video camera to use as scene camera.

SONY DCR-HC24E

Please read the instructions in the document scene camera settings if using the recommended camera. This accessory is normally used for the Scene Camera stimuli which can only be used in ClearView.

Microphone

Used for capturing User Audio during testing

Logitech desktop microphone (Logitech article number 980240-0914)

Make sure to check the volume and that the microphone input is enabled in the settings under audio properties on the computer.

Manfrotto Arm

Suitable for mounting a camera used as scene camera or user camera

Manfrotto MAGIC ARM Set 143, plus possibly other applicable attachments and adapters

Web Camera

To capture video and audio of the user when using the Tobii Live Viewer

The Tobii T60 Eye Tracker has a built-in user camera. For the Tobii X120 Eye Tracker use the other recommended models.

Logitech QuickC am PRO 5000 USB or Logitech QuickC am Sphere MP

RGB Switch

To manually switch between two video sources, for instance when switching between an external stimulus or a calibration screen

Aten VS-291 or Altinex DA1916SX 2-In 1-Out VGA Auto Switcher with Loop Output*

This accessory is normally used for the External Video stimuli which can only be used in ClearView. The functionality will be added in Tobii Studio in the future. This accessory is normally used for the External Video and stimuli which can only be used in ClearView. The functionality will be added in Tobii Studio in the future.

Any standard RGB switch should work

RGB Splitter

To split the video output into two, for instance when using external video setup, or when using a projector to show a copy of the operator screen.

Aten VS-132 or Altinex DA1907SX 1-In 2-Out VGA Distribution Amplifier*

Most active RGB splitters (active means that it has additional power) should work.

System Recommendations Tobii T/X Series and Tobii Studio. All rights reserved. Content subject to change without notice.

Copyright Tobii Technology AB, 2003-2007.