What is ocula?

OCULA is a free, browser-based tool that lets you control your computer cursor using only your eyes and a standard webcam, with no special hardware, no installation, and no account required. It was built to give access to gaze-based input to people who cannot use a mouse or keyboard, such as ALS patients, people with RSI, or those with cerebral palsy, for whom dedicated commercial eye trackers costing USD 200 to 3000 or more are often out of reach. The way it works: your webcam captures a video stream, which is processed by MediaPipe Face Mesh, a library that identifies 468 landmarks on your face including dedicated iris landmarks. OCULA measures the relative position of each iris inside its eye socket and maps that to a screen coordinate. A 5-point on-screen calibration step ties your gaze direction to specific points on the screen. The resulting coordinates are smoothed to keep the cursor stable, and clicking is done by dwelling, meaning holding your gaze on a target for a configurable amount of time, 0.8 seconds by default. A progress ring around the cursor shows how close to a click you are. Included is a demonstration AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) board, a simple 6-tile grid that you can activate with your gaze, showing that a no-hands communication aid can run entirely in a browser tab. Everything runs client-side in vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with no framework, no bundler, and no backend. Camera frames and iris data never leave your browser. The project is licensed under MIT and explicitly notes it is a research and educational prototype, not a medical device.