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Lightweight palm and finger tracking for real-time 3D gesture control

Georg Hackenberg, Rod McCall and Wolfgang Broll

Virtual Reality Conference (VR), 2011 IEEE, pp.19-26, 19-23 March 2011

Abstract

We present a novel technique implementing barehanded interaction with virtual 3D content by employing a time-of-flight camera. The system improves on existing 3D multi-touch systems by working regardless of lighting conditions and supplying a working volume large enough for multiple users. Previous systems were limited either by environmental requirements, working volume, or computational resources necessary for realtime operation. By employing a time-of-flight camera, the system is capable of reliably recognizing gestures at the finger level in real-time at more than 50 fps with commodity computer hardware using our newly developed precision hand and finger-tracking algorithm. Building on this algorithm, the system performs gesture recognition with simple constraint modeling over statistical aggregations of the hand appearances in a working volume of more than 8 cubic meters. Two iterations of user tests were performed on a prototype system, demonstrating the feasibility and usability of the approach as well as providing first insights regarding the acceptance of true barehanded touch-based 3D interaction.

Presentation Slides

BibTeX Citation

@INPROCEEDINGS{ 
	author={Hackenberg, G. and McCall, R. and Broll, Wolfgang}, 
	booktitle={Virtual Reality Conference (VR), 2011 IEEE}, 
	title={Lightweight palm and finger tracking for real-time 3D gesture control}, 
	year={2011}, 
	month={March}, 
	pages={19-26},
	doi={10.1109/VR.2011.5759431}, 
	ISSN={1087-8270},
}

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