ft-gaze computed and printed all six sources for every sample: about 1.3 KB of JSON a line
with our tracker (practice2), 120 KB a second through podman's stdio relay for ft-gazed to
json.loads 90 times a second. It also read SteamVR's gaze action for every sample outside
games (UpdateActionState and GetEyeTrackingDataRelativeToNow, two calls into vrserver, 180 a
second), though with our tracker ft-gazed only uses own and mmap1.
- ft-gaze takes --sources LIST (action, mmap1, mmap2, left, right, own, and eye for the EYE
object; all by default, so the probe and ft-eyes-session are unchanged), and with
--watch-stdin a line "sources LIST" on stdin switches them. A source left out isn't read
and prints as {"ok":0} ("eye" as null), so every line keeps the same keys. An older
ft-gaze ignores both, and prints everything as before.
- ft-gazed asks for what it reads: own,mmap1 with our tracker; left,right,mmap1 with
SteamVR's eyes; the source plus mmap1 and mmap2 on the older one-source path. While a
check or the calibration runs or waits to open, all of them, since checks record every
source (the calibration fits the action's correction too) and the fit check reads "eye".
It switches as soon as that changes, well inside the check's 0.45 s settle.
- So the action is read only during checks, or with --source action.
On recorded samples, a line with own and mmap1 is about 700 bytes instead of 1,300
(practice2), and one with left, right and mmap1 about 550 instead of 940 (test1).
gaze/test/idle-test.py now checks that ft-gaze starts with every source for a check and is
then switched to those in use, without the action or own; all its checks pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The gaze service ran ft-gaze and our own eye tracker all the time: with gaze mode off, ft-eyes
still took about 60% of a core, and ft-eyegrab, ft-gaze and ft-gazed 3 to 4% each. Now ft-gaze
and our tracker run only while gaze mode is on and someone wears the headset, while a check or
the calibration is open or asked for, or under a "wake" lease, which the Gaze page of Frametop
Input Settings renews while it's open. 30 s after the last use they stop, and the frame grabber
idles with our tracker.
- The pointer helper answers "gaze ? headset" with worn|away (SteamVR's activity level for the
headset); an older helper answers it as before, and the service then goes by gaze mode alone.
- A quick check, calibration, or fit check asked for while idle wakes the tracker and opens once
it sends; the automatic calibration waits quietly while it starts.
- Status has "awake" and "idle" (why), and the Gaze page shows it.
- gaze/test/idle-test.py runs the service with a fake helper and ft-gaze, offline.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
