Hand shape extraction from a sequence of digitized gray-scale images

Gesture recognition is currently a major trend in human-computer interface researches. In a gestural interface, the extraction of the hand shape from a digitized scene is the first step before the analysis and recognition of the gestures themselves. Aiming at the implementation of a gestural interface, in this paper the authors present a method to extract fingertip coordinates from a sequence of images. The authors propose a method comprising histogram analysis, using the results from movement detection in order to find threshold values, and applying gray level slicing. This overall processing solves some problems found in conventional methods, such as the influence of shadows. A potential application would be in the implementation of an input device that substitutes the mouse.<>