Gesture Recognition

What Are Gestures.????Gestures are an important aspect of human interaction, both interpersonally and in the context of man-machine interfaces.A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages either in place of speech or together and in parallel with words.Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body.

Types of Gestures.:Gesticulation: Spontaneous movement of the hands and arms that accompany speech.Language like gestures: Gesticulation that is integrated into a spoken utterance, replacing a particular spoken word or phrase.Pantomimes: Gestures that depict objects or actions, with or without accompanying speech.Emblems: Familiar gestures such as V for victory, thumbs up, and assorted rude gestures.Sign Languages: Linguistic systems such as American sign language which are well defined.

What is Gesture Recognition.??Interface with computers using gestures of the human body, typically hand movements.Gesture recognition is an important skill for robots that work closely with humans.Gesture recognition is especially valuable in applications involving interaction human/robot for several reasons.

Gesture sensing technologies:Contact type:Touch based gestures.Non-Contact type:Device gesture technologies.Vision based technologies.Electrical field sensing.

Device gesture technologyDevice based techniques use a glove, stylus or other position tracker whose movement send signals that the systems uses to identify the gesture.The glove is equipped with a variety of sensors to provide info about hand position, orientation, and flex of fingers.

Vision Based Technology There are two approaches to vision based gesture recognition: Model based techniques: They try to create a three dimensional model of the users hand and use this for recognition. Image based methods: Image-based techniques detect a gesture by capturing pictures of a users motions during the course of a gesture.

Electric field sensing.Proximity of a human body or body part can be measured by sensing electric fields .These measurements can be used to measure the distance of a human hand or other body part from an object; this facilitates a vast range of applications for a wide range of industries.

Advantages.Sign language recognition.Directional indication through pointing.Control through facial gestures.Immersive game technology.Affective computing.Gaming control.Alternative computer interfaces.

Drawbacks.The cost of implementation.Such systems are difficult to develop as each gesture is assigned a specific control command, this system is not platform independent since certain control commands varies as the operating system varies.

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