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eidon is a toolkit for implementing eye-tracking experiments and turning the collected data into publication-ready datasets.

You can use it to …

… get started quickly with running your first eye-tracking study
… implement common experimental paradigms (like reading or visual world) without any programming
… conduct studies in a reproducible way with open and FAIR data principles in mind

eidon is designed to be both easy to use and easy to customize, depending on your needs and level of expertise. It prioritizes interoperability, so you can combine it with the tools you already use and love.

While eidon is usable and has been used successfully in research projects, it is still under development. This means that some features may be missing, and other features may improve in the future. You can help us out by creating feature requests or bug reports, or by contributing code!

Who is eidon for?

eidon is for researchers who use in-lab eye-tracking methods, in particular:

Language researchers: eidon provides implementations for a range of experiment types common in psycholinguistics. These implementations are easy to configure and modify with custom code to suit your needs.
NLP researchers: Want to collect eye-tracking data for your dataset, or see what your annotators are paying attention to? eidon is for you.
Students: If you are just getting started with eye tracking, eidon makes it easy for you to implement your first experiment while following best practices. No coding required.

Who is eidon not for?

eidon is not the best choice for you if you want to …

… run crowdsourcing studies: eidon is designed for use in a laboratory with high-precision eye trackers (not webcams).
… conduct user studies for your software product or website: all stimuli need to be rendered by eidon itself, not via an external program.
… run an experiment with an eye tracker other than SR Research EyeLink: eidon currently only supports EyeLink. If you have a different brand of eye tracker and would like to help us support it, please get in touch!

How eidon works

flowchart TD
    A("Stimulus material + configuration file") -->|fa:fa-hammer eidon build| B(Compiled experiment)
    B -->|fa:fa-play eidon setup| C(Hardware setup configuration)
    C -->|fa:fa-play eidon run| D(Eye-tracking recordings)
    D -->|fa:fa-broom eidon convert| E(Raw eye-tracking data + metadata)
    E -->|fa:fa-broom eidon clean| F(Clean, publishable eye-tracking data)

eidon consists of several components:

eidon build builds your experiment. You provide the stimuli and configure fonts, colors, participant numbers, and other settings, and eidon build will turn it into a presentable experiment.
eidon setup records metadata about your hardware setup. This keeps track of settings like the eye-to-screen distance and makes sure that your stimuli are within your eye tracker’s trackable range.
eidon run runs your experiment. You provide a session ID, and eidon run will present the stimuli, handle participant interaction, and record eye-tracking data.
eidon convert converts your data into easy-to-use CSV files and extracts relevant metadata.
eidon clean helps you inspect and clean your eye-tracking data.