But what if you don't have a Kinect? Or use of your hands? Or have limited movement or space?

You all know I have this thing for Emotiv. So lets put all this together.

What if you could...

Use your brain as mouse control (with EPOC by Emotiv)

Can you imagine that there is an easier way to control the mouse, than with your head? The answer could be: With your mind.

Electroencephalography (EEG) was already established in 1924. In the past it was used mainly for medical reasons. But now you can also use this technology, to control your computer.

Emotiv EPOC

Emotiv has developed a Neuroheadset called EPOC. It reads your brainwaves and on this ground it is able to detect your current feelings like boredom, frustration, meditation and excitement. Your mind sends also certain signal patterns when your face is showing facial expressions. So EPOC can detect facial expressions like smiling, lowering and raising your eyebrows, clenching your teeths or blinking your eyes. This is quite similar to the facial expression detection, which is provided by Kinect for Windows SDK. Furthermore EPOC has a Gyroscope, which recognizes your head movement very accurate. So we developed a version of FaceMouse especially for EPOC.

FaceMouse for EPOC

You can replace your mouse with Emotiv EPOC, the revolutionary brain computer interface. Within Emotiv Control Panel there is already a Mouse Emulator which uses the EPOC Gyroscope to control the cursor of your mouse. EmoKey, an app developed by Emotiv, provides basic functionality for clicking by using EPOC, but this method has several disadvantages:

• In EmoKey clicks are sometimes not executed correctly in special kinds of application windows.
• It is not possible to send a scroll command with EmoKey.

FaceMouse for EPOC sends mouseclicks directly to the operating system, independent from the currently active application window. Also it is possible to scroll or drag & drop, which is not possible with EmoKey.

Just activate the Mouse Emulator in Emotiv Control Panel and use this simple App. It is the easiest way to replace your mouse with EPOC.

FaceMouse

This is a small Windows application, which enhances the possibilities to use EPOC as mouse control. Within Emotiv Control Panel you find a Mouse Emulator which uses the EPOC Gyroskop to control the cursor of your mouse. EmoKey provides basic functionality for clicking by using EPOC, but this method has several disadvantages:

In EmoKey clicks are sometimes not executed correctly in special kinds of application windows. Also it is not possible to send a scroll command with EmoKey.

This application sends mouseclicks directly to the operating system, independent from the currently active application window. Also it is possible to scroll or point & click. FaceMouse uses data from Expressiv Suite.

Just activate the Mouse Emulator in Emotiv Control Panel and use this simple App. It is the easiest way to replace your mouse with EPOC.

Mouse control with your face, head and mind... That's just cool

Emotiv Engine Client Library

I finally got my act together and posted the code for my EmoEngineClientLibrary, which is a C# wrapper around the DotNetEmotivSDK.dll assembly that ships with the Emotiv SDK.

• Browse the source code
• Browse the documentation overview

You may recall this code library from such blog posts as:

• Kinect-Emotiv mashup prototype
• Realtime Brainwave Data with WPF
• Again with the brainwaves

With this API, you can collect realtime neurodata from the EPOC headset in a managed application. The API simplifies databinding by exposing EmoEngine methods as CLR properties. Also, it provides a PropertyChanged event that notifies your code when new neurodata and other signals arrive. You also get a lightweight WPF visualization library that renders neurodata in realtime.

Emotiv Engine Client

Project Description
Provides an event-driven .NET framework wrapper around the managed Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset API.
Requirements

• Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset Research Edition SDK: Available from Emotiv, list price $750.00.
• Visual Studio 2010: Available from Microsoft.
• Windows 7 or higher: Widely available, e.g., Microsoft Store.

Documentation
Reasonably complete documentation (EmoEngineClientLibrary Documentation) is built in the project by using Sandcastle. A brief overview is provided in the Documentation tab.

So lets take a peek at the Solution.

If you get an error loading the Documentation project, Documentation.shfbproj, and you're interested in see it (it's not required or build critical, it's the Sandcastle related doc builder) check out the Sandcastle Help File Builder and the installer on SHFB v1.9.3.4 Beta 2 (VS2010 Support). On a related note, the guided installer for SHFB v1.9.3.4 Beta 2 is pretty neat all in itself. It walks you through checking for and installing the many components and parts that make up Sandcastle and the Sandcastle Help File Builder.

What's cool is that the library implements IPropertyNotify so you can use binding.

<DockPanel >

            <eecontrol:NeuroHeadsetStatusControl HeadsetDataSource="{StaticResource emoEngineClient}" BorderBrush="{StaticResource VaLightBorderBrush}" BorderThickness="1" >

            </eecontrol:NeuroHeadsetStatusControl>

            <Grid x:Name="_neuroDataGrid" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Height="Auto" Width="Auto">
                <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                    <RowDefinition Height="25" />
                    <RowDefinition Height="25" />
                    <RowDefinition Height="25" />
                    <RowDefinition Height="139.695*" />
                </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <Label Name="label1" VerticalContentAlignment="Center" Padding="0" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}">Polling</Label>
                <Label Grid.Column="1" Name="label3" Background="{Binding Source={StaticResource emoEngineClient}, Path=IsPolling, Converter={StaticResource boolToBrushConverter} }" ></Label>
                <Label Name="label2" Grid.Row="1" VerticalContentAlignment="Center" Padding="0" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}" >Sampling Rate</Label>
                <Label Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Name="label4" Content="{Binding Source={StaticResource emoEngineClient}, Path=SamplingRate}" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}" ></Label>
                <Label  Grid.Row="2" VerticalContentAlignment="Center" Padding="0" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}">Buffer Size</Label>
                <Label Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" Content="{Binding Source={StaticResource emoEngineClient}, Path=BufferSize}" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}"></Label>
                <eecontrol:NeuroDataControl x:Name="_neuroDataControl" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" DataFrameSource="{StaticResource emoEngineClient}" ChannelsToDisplay="{StaticResource channelsToDisplay}" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" BorderBrush="{StaticResource VaLightBorderBrush}" Foreground="{StaticResource VaLightBlueBrush}" />
                <Label Height="28" Name="_watermarkLabel" Foreground="#99FFFFFF" Grid.Column="1" Margin="0" Grid.Row="3" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="Auto">Copyright © James Galasyn 2010</Label>

            </Grid>

        </DockPanel>

One of the other things mentioned is the event driven capability of the library. Here's some related snips;

void engine_EmoStateUpdated( object sender, EmoStateUpdatedEventArgs e )
        {
            // ctor clones the EmoState object.
            EmoState emoState = new EmoState( e.emoState );

            // Notifies the client thread that the EmotivState changed.
            this._processEventsWorker.ReportProgress( 0, emoState );
        }

        void engine_InternalStateChanged( object sender, EmoEngineEventArgs e )
        {
            Trace.WriteLine( e.ToString() );
        }

        void engine_EmoEngineConnected( object sender, EmoEngineEventArgs e )
        {
            this.UserID = e.userId;
        }

        void emotivEngine_UserAdded( object sender, EmoEngineEventArgs e )
        {
            this.UserID = e.userId;
        }

What are the States?

Okay, maybe it doesn't really read your mind, but the possibilities of the kinds of apps you can build (say like a mind reading skateboard) are mind blowing, aren't they?

Here’s a few more links you might find interesting:

• It's as if it can read your mind...
• Emotiv Systems: We get a first glimpse at this revolutionary brain gaming peripheral
• EmotivSharp
• Mind Control Your Computer In C#