Television Set Controlled By Hand Gestures
We made a prototype of a television set that the viewer could control by hand gestures, instead of a remote control. Our prototype was a two-screen system, using a computer workstation and a television. We were able to evaluate the feel of controlling a television set by hand signals. Controlling a television set remotely through hand gestures seemed to be exciting for the people who tried the prototype. However, "channel-surfing" would tire the arm; a more relaxed hand signal needs to be developed for extended viewing.
Background & Objective: Infra-red-based television remoted controls are a popular and successful television interface, which viewers value. We sought to explore other interface methods which might be complementary with the television remote control. The work addressed two fundamental issues of gesture--based human--computer interaction: (1) How can one communicate a rich set of commands without extensive user training and memorization of gestures? (2) How can the computer recognize the commands in a complicated visual environment?
Technical Discussion: Our solution to both the command vocabulary and the command recognition issues relies on the visual feedback provided by the television display. The user only needs to memorize a single hand signal (the open hand), which forms a distinct patten for the computer to recognize. There is a tradeoff between the system response time and field--of--view. To obtain reasonable response, we limited the field of view to 25 degrees during search for the trigger gesture, and 15 degrees during tracking of the hand.
Contacts:
Joseph Katz
| Technical Reports: | |
| Television Control by Hand Gestures | |
Technology Areas:
Computer Vision
Advanced Digital Television
Modification Date: January 23, 2007
