Depth Camera-Based 3D Hand Gesture Controls with Immersive Tactile Feedback for Natural Mid-Air Gesture Interactions

Sensors

Kwangtaek Kim¹  Joongrock Kim²  Jaesung Choi¹  Junghyun Kim¹ 

[1] Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Institute of BioMed-IT, Energy-IT and Smart-IT Technology (Best), Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Korea; E-Mails:;Future IT Convergence Lab, LGE Advanced Research Institute, 38 Baumoe-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul 137-724, Korea; E-Mail:

关键词: 3D hand gesture tracking;    3D gesture control;    tactile feedback;    depth camera-based gestures;    vision-based hand gesture interface;    human computer interaction;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s150101022

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Vision-based hand gesture interactions are natural and intuitive when interacting with computers, since we naturally exploit gestures to communicate with other people. However, it is agreed that users suffer from discomfort and fatigue when using gesture-controlled interfaces, due to the lack of physical feedback. To solve the problem, we propose a novel complete solution of a hand gesture control system employing immersive tactile feedback to the user's hand. For this goal, we first developed a fast and accurate hand-tracking algorithm with a Kinect sensor using the proposed MLBP (modified local binary pattern) that can efficiently analyze 3D shapes in depth images. The superiority of our tracking method was verified in terms of tracking accuracy and speed by comparing with existing methods, Natural Interaction Technology for End-user (NITE), 3D Hand Tracker and CamShift. As the second step, a new tactile feedback technology with a piezoelectric actuator has been developed and integrated into the developed hand tracking algorithm, including the DTW (dynamic time warping) gesture recognition algorithm for a complete solution of an immersive gesture control system. The quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the integrated system were conducted with human subjects, and the results demonstrate that our gesture control with tactile feedback is a promising technology compared to a vision-based gesture control system that has typically no feedback for the user's gesture inputs. Our study provides researchers and designers with informative guidelines to develop more natural gesture control systems or immersive user interfaces with haptic feedback.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.