Title: Real-Time Hand-Tracking with a Color Glove

Authors: Wang, RY & Popovic, J.

Link to Article: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531326.1531369

(I know not everyone will be able to view the full article using the link, see other links below)

Abstract: Articulated hand-tracking systems have been widely used in virtual reality but are rarely deployed in consumer applications due to their price and complexity. In this paper, we propose an easy-to-use and inexpensive system that facilitates 3-D articulated user-input using the hands. Our approach uses a single camera to track a hand wearing an ordinary cloth glove that is imprinted with a custom pattern. The pattern is designed to simplify the pose estimation problem, allowing us to employ a nearest-neighbor approach to track hands at interactive rates. We describe several proof-of-concept applications enabled by our system that we hope will provide a foundation for new interactions in modeling, animation control and augmented reality.

Link to MIT news: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/gesture-computing-0520.html

Link to website with videos: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rywang/hand/

For those of you interested in inexpensive ways to track the hand for rehabilitation purposes, look no further! The glove that these researchers have developed has tremendous potential for the rehab field. While the Wii and EyeToy are great at tracking larger body parts, there are few ways to track the hand as a controller for video/computer games. Especially in occupational therapy, clients with motor and sensory dysfunctions in the hand can play games with their own hand as the controller. The other neat thing about this glove is that the person can interact with either virtual or real-life objects. Keep your eyes and ears open for futher developments with this awesome glove!