The PlayStation Eye (trademarked PLAYSTATION Eye) is a digital camera device, similar to a

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripher ...

, for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

. The technology uses

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human ...

and

gesture recognition Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. It is a subdiscipline of computer vision. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or sta ...

to process images taken by the camera. This allows players to interact with games using motion and color detection as well as sound through its built-in microphone array. It is the successor to the EyeToy for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on ...

, which was released in 2003. The peripheral was launched in a

bundle Bundle or Bundling may refer to: * Bundling (packaging), the process of using straps to bundle up items Biology * Bundle of His, a collection of heart muscle cells specialized for electrical conduction * Bundle of Kent, an extra conduction path ...

with '' The Eye of Judgment'' in the United States on October 23, 2007, in Japan and Australia on October 25, 2007 and in Europe on October 26, 2007. The PlayStation Eye was also released as a stand-alone product in the United States, Europe, and Australia. EyeToy designer Richard Marks stated that the EyeToy was used as a model for the rough cost design. The device is succeeded by

PlayStation Camera The PlayStation Camera is a motion sensor and camera accessory for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the successor to the PlayStation Eye for the PlayStation 3, which was released in 2007. It ...

for

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...

Features

Camera

The PlayStation Eye is capable of capturing standard video with

frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images ( frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ...

s of 60

hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that o ...

at a 640×480 pixel resolution, and 120 hertz at 320×240 pixels, which is "four times the resolution" and "two times the frame-rate" of the EyeToy, according to Sony. Higher frame rate, up to 320×240@187 or 640×480@75 fps, can be selected by specific applications ( FreeTrack and LinuxTrack). The PlayStation Eye also has "two times the sensitivity" of the EyeToy, with Sony collaborating with sensor chip partner

OmniVision Technologies OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, not ...

on a sensor chip design using larger sensor pixels, allowing more effective low-light operation. Sony states that the PlayStation Eye can produce "reasonable quality video" under the illumination provided by a television set. The camera features a two-setting adjustable

fixed-focus A photographic lens for which the focus is not adjustable is called a fixed-focus lens or sometimes focus-free. The focus is set at the time of lens design, and remains fixed. It is usually set to the hyperfocal distance, so that the depth of fiel ...

zoom lens A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). A true zoom lens, also called a parfocal lens, is one t ...

. Selected manually by rotating the lens barrel, the PlayStation Eye can be set to a 56 °

field of view The field of view (FoV) is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Human ...

(red dot) similar to that of the EyeToy, for

close-up A close-up or closeup in filmmaking, television production, photography, still photography, and the comic strip medium is a type of shot (filmmaking), shot that tightly film frame, frames a person or object. Close-ups are one of the standard s ...

framing in chat applications, or a 75° field of view (blue dot) for long-shot framing in interactive physical gaming applications. The PlayStation Eye is capable of outputting video to the console uncompressed, with "no compression artifacts"; or with optional

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

compression. 8 bits per pixel is the sensor native color depth.

Microphone

The PlayStation Eye features a built-in four-capsule microphone array, with which the PlayStation 3 can employ technologies for multi-directional voice location tracking,

echo cancellation Echo suppression and echo cancellation are methods used in telephony to improve voice quality by preventing echo from being created or removing it after it is already present. In addition to improving subjective audio quality, echo suppression ...

, and background noise suppression. This allows the peripheral to be used for speech recognition and audio chat in noisy environments without the use of a headset. The PlayStation Eye microphone array operates with each channel processing 16- bit

sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of ...

s at a

sampling rate In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal In mathematical dynamics, discrete time and continuous time are two alternative frameworks within which variables that evolve over time are modeled. Discrete time ...

of 48

kilohertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that on ...

, and a

signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in de ...

of 90

decibel The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a ...

Applications

Like its predecessor, the EyeToy, the PlayStation Eye enables

natural user interface In computing, a natural user interface (NUI) or natural interface is a user interface that is effectively invisible, and remains invisible as the user continuously learns increasingly complex interactions. The word "natural" is used because most ...

and mixed reality video game applications through the use of

(CV) and

technologies implemented in the software. Though initial PlayStation Eye software has mostly been based on the same general techniques as the EyeToy (e.g. simple

edge detection Edge detection includes a variety of mathematical methods that aim at identifying edges, curves in a digital image at which the image brightness changes sharply or, more formally, has discontinuities. The same problem of finding discontinuitie ...

and color tracking, Digimask face mapping), since the announcement of the forthcoming camera-based PlayStation Move and

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of fli ...

(then known as "Project Natal") control systems at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony has been promoting a number of other technologies available for the PlayStation Eye. Among these are the Vision Library, which can perform advanced facial recognition/analysis and CV-based head tracking, and PSVR (PlayStation Voice Recognition), a

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

intended to support about 20 different languages. According to Sony; the facial technology can identify features such as eyes, mouth, eyebrows, nose, and eyeglasses; read the shape of the mouth and detect a smile;See

facial expression capture Facial motion capture is the process of electronically converting the movements of a person's face into a digital database using cameras or laser scanners. This database may then be used to produce computer graphics (CG), computer animation for m ...

. determine the position and orientation of the subject's head; and estimate the age and gender of the face. In addition to gaming-oriented uses, Sony has stated that the PlayStation Eye will also feature applications for tasks such as interactive communication and content creation (e.g. movie-making and

video blog A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in ...

ging). An AV Chat feature allows for audio-visual chat with anyone on a user's

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smar ...

friends list (up to six at once). Additional free content and activities are planned for release via the PlayStation Network.

EyeCreate

The PlayStation Eye features free ''EyeCreate'' video editing software, which enables users to capture pictures, video, and audio clips directly to the hard drive of the PlayStation 3 console. ''EyeCreate'' features a variety of different capturing modes, including

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

and

time-lapse Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus ...

. Through the software, users can edit, save, and share their own custom images, movies, and audio content. Videos created using the program can be exported as MPEG-4 files for use outside PlayStation 3 consoles.

PlayStation Move

First revealed on June 2, 2009, PlayStation Move is a motion control system for the

based on video tracking and inertial sensors. Based on a wand controller, PlayStation Move uses the PlayStation Eye to track the wand's position in three dimensions through a special illuminated orb at the end. The controller was released in the EU, UK and USA in September 2010, with an Asian release date listed as October 21, 2010.

Compatible games

The following are some PlayStation 3 games with camera functionality, some of which may not be specifically developed for the PlayStation Eye. The PlayStation Eye does not support EyeToy compatible

games. *2007 **''Aqua Vita/Aquatopia'' **''Ember'' **'' Mesmerize'' (January 17, 2008 in North America) **'' Operation Creature Feature'' **'' The Eye of Judgment'' (uses PlayStation Eye on a stand and playing mat with cards to simulate card battles) **'' The Trials of Topoq'' **''

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 ''Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08'' is a sports video game released by EA Sports on all major seventh-generation platforms along with the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. EA Tiburon developed every version except the Nintendo DS version, w ...

'' **'' Tori-Emaki'' **'' SingStar'' **''Sky Blue'' **'' Snakeball'' **'' PES 2008'' **''EyeCreate'' (software, not a game) *2008 **'' Buzz!: Quiz TV'' (also compatible with PlayStation 2 EyeToy) **''

Burnout Paradise ''Burnout Paradise'' is a 2008 open world racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It was also released on the PlayStation Store and via Xbox Live Marke ...

'' (used to take personal snapshot after winning/losing against other players online. Also compatible with PlayStation 2 EyeToy) **'' FaceBreaker'' (used to capture personal image for the character) **'' GTI Club+: Rally Côte d'Azur'' **'' High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition'' (used to see others) **''

LittleBigPlanet ''LittleBigPlanet'' (stylized as ''LittleBIGPlanet''; abbreviated ''LBP'') is a puzzle platform video game series created and produced by British developer Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Most games in the series ...

'' **''

PES 2009 ''Pro Evolution Soccer 2009'' (''PES 2009'', known as ''World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2009'' in Korea and Japan) is a football video game in the ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' series, which was made by Konami. It is also the exclusive licensed game of t ...

'' (used to capture personal image for the character, "Become a Legend" mode) **'' SingStar Vol. 2'' (used to record video and take snapshots and upload online) **'' Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2'' (used to capture personal image for the character) *2009 **'' Bomberman Ultra'' (streams video to other players when a tournament is won) **'' Buzz!: Quiz World'' **'' Tiger Woods 10'' **''

Fight Night Round 4 ''Fight Night Round 4'' is a boxing video game developed by EA Sports. It is the sequel to '' Fight Night Round 3'', released in 2006. It was released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. The game's featured boxer ...

'' **''

EyePet ''EyePet'' is a game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, developed by London Studio and Playlogic Game Factory. The original PlayStation 3 version was released in Europe on 23 October 2009 and in Australia on 27 October 2009. This ...

'' (Europe) *2010 **'' Gran Turismo 5'' (for head tracking) **''

'' **'' The Shoot'' **'' Kung-Fu Live'' (for full body tracking) **'' Def Jam Rapstar'' **'' Start the Party'' **'' Time Crisis: Razing Storm'' **'' TV Superstars'' **'' Buzz!: The Ultimate Music Quiz'' **'' The Fight: Lights Out'' (for head tracking) **'' EA MMA'' (for facial mapping on custom character) **''

Sports Champions Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

'' *2011 **''

Fight Night Champion ''Fight Night Champion'' is a boxing video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth and last entry in the ''Fight Night'' series and was released in March 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game take ...

'' **'' LittleBigPlanet 2'' **'' Michael Jackson The Experience'' **'' Kung Fu Live'' *2012 **'' Ōkami HD'' *Unreleased **''Eyedentify''

PC drivers and applications

While there is no official support or drivers by Sony to run the PlayStation Eye on other platforms such as personal computers, there are community-supported drivers available for Mac OS, Working drivers for MacOS can be downloaded from http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/ and https://github.com/inspirit/PS3EYEDriver/ Linux, and NetBSDA working driver is included with NetBSD 5.0 and above, see http://man.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/man-cgi?pseye++NetBSD-current for more information. and a commercially available driver for Windows.A working driver for Windows XP and Vista can be downloaded from http://codelaboratories.com/downloads A video capture and analysis application is available for Windows.A video capture and analysis application for Windows can be downloaded from https://www.heath-studios.com/#proam1

Footnotes

References

External links

PlayStation Eye entries
at PlayStation.Blog.US

featuring footage for Operation Creature Feature, The Trials of Topoq, and Aqua Vita

featuring brief footage of Aqua Vita and Sky Blue

{{DEFAULTSORT:Playstation Eye PlayStation 3 accessories PlayStation Eye games Eye Sony cameras Webcams Gesture recognition