Basic communication form
We humans use gestures to interact
with our environment during the earliest stages of our development. We
also communicate using such gestures
as body movement, facial expression,
and finger pointing. Though much has
been written about gesture interfaces,
interface technology rarely adopts this
media; consequently, expressiveness
and naturalness elements are missing
from most user interfaces. Hand-gesture applications provide three main
advantages over conventional human-machine interaction systems:
Accessing information while maintaining total sterility. Touchless interfaces are especially useful in health-care environments;
Overcoming physical handicaps.
Control of home devices and appliances for people with physical handicaps
and/or elderly users with impaired mobility; and
Exploring big data. Exploration
of large complex data volumes and
manipulation of high-quality images through intuitive actions benefit
from 3D interaction, rather than constrained traditional 2D methods.
Human-robot interaction is another
application where the main motivation
for gesture-based systems is to have
this communication resemble natural
human dialogue as much as possible.
For example, imagine how intuitive it
could be to use hand gestures to tell a
robot what to do or where to go. Pointing to a dust spot to indicate “Clean
that spot,” users would be able to tell a
Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner what
to do next. Finally, gestures provide
a source of expressiveness when immersed in realistic video games. Some
notable technologies (such as Microsoft Kinect, Sony PSP, and Nintendo
DS and Wii) include gesture recognition in their consoles. Unfortunately,
only dynamic gestures (such as waving
and fist hitting) are recognized so far.
Dynamic hand-shape recognition, as
in American Sign Language, remains a
challenge.
costs/Benefits
The appeal of gesture interfaces de-
rives partly from their flexibility and
customizability. Still, many require-
ments as to their functionality and
performance are the same throughout
most classes of use. As devices and
hand-gesture interfaces proliferate as
a result of inexpensive cameras and
computational power, questions con-
cerning market acceptance also be-
come more frequent. Here are the basic
requirements, though they are likely to
vary depending on application:
