A research group at Tsukuba University has developed a system that allows users to move 3D building blocks in a virtual environment simply by using their hand tracked by a single camera.
The clever virtual reality system doesn’t require the user to wear any special markers or sensors. Instead, the computer has been given both 3D hand shapes and 2D hand image data in order to help figure out what the user is doing. From that data it can recognize a person’s hand and their movements by processing the camera data.
Only one camera is necessary for the tracking to work, but adding a second camera means the system can pick up on more subtle movements of the hand and individual fingers. Placement is key though, with the other camera needing to be positioned perpendicular to the first.
The building blocks application is just a demonstration of what such a system can do. It could instead be used to remotely control a robot, which allows for such things as safe, remote bomb disposal or other dangerous work that is best done by robots, but requires the precise actions of a user.
The main focus for the research group now is 3D interfaces for PC. A 3D desktop interface is the goal, but a gesture-controlled ebook application will come before any sort of Minority Report interface. And with the system relying on software and just one camera, it has the potential to be a very cheap 3D gesture interface. Importantly, it should be much cheaper to purchase than Microsoft’s Kinect platform.