# GazeDirector: Fully Articulated Eye Gaze Redirection in Video

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.08763 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.08763/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Apr 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [GAN Inversion: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.05278/) (2021)
- [Automatic Gaze Analysis: A Survey of Deep Learning based Approaches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05479/) (2021)
- [GazeNeRF: 3D-Aware Gaze Redirection with Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04823/) (2022)
- [MTGLS: Multi-Task Gaze Estimation with Limited Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.12100/) (2021)
- [Free-HeadGAN: Neural Talking Head Synthesis with Explicit Gaze Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.02210/) (2022)
- [GazeGaussian: High-Fidelity Gaze Redirection with 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12981/) (2024)
- [ReDirTrans: Latent-to-Latent Translation for Gaze and Head Redirection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11452/) (2023)
- [CUDA-GHR: Controllable Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Gaze and Head Redirection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10852/) (2021)
- [Unsupervised High-Resolution Portrait Gaze Correction and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.00256/) (2022)
- ['Labelling the Gaps': A Weakly Supervised Automatic Eye Gaze Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01840/) (2022)
- [EyeBAG: Accurate Control of Eye Blink and Gaze Based on Data Augmentation Leveraging Style Mixing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.17391/) (2023)
- [Angle Range and Identity Similarity Enhanced Gaze and Head Redirection based on Synthetic data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.05214/) (2023)
- [PrivateXR: Defending Privacy Attacks in Extended Reality Through Explainable AI-Guided Differential Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16851/) (2025)
- [GazePrior: Zero-Shot AR/VR Eye Tracking via Learned 3D Gaze Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22359/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present GazeDirector, a new approach for eye gaze redirection that uses model-fitting. Our method first tracks the eyes by fitting a multi-part eye region model to video frames using analysis-by-synthesis, thereby recovering eye region shape, texture, pose, and gaze simultaneously. It then redirects gaze by 1) warping the eyelids from the original image using a model-derived flow field, and 2) rendering and compositing synthesized 3D eyeballs onto the output image in a photorealistic manner. GazeDirector allows us to change where people are looking without person-specific training data, and with full articulation, i.e. we can precisely specify new gaze directions in 3D. Quantitatively, we evaluate both model-fitting and gaze synthesis, with experiments for gaze estimation and redirection on the Columbia gaze dataset. Qualitatively, we compare GazeDirector against recent work on gaze redirection, showing better results especially for large redirection angles. Finally, we demonstrate gaze redirection on YouTube videos by introducing new 3D gaze targets and by manipulating visual behavior.