The 4D Touchpad: Unencumbered HCI With VICs

We present a platform for human-machine interfaces that provides functionality for robust, unencumbered interaction: the 4D Touchpad (4DT). The goal is direct interaction with interface components through intuitive actions and gestures. The 4DT is based on the 3D-2D Projection-based mode of the VICs framework. The fundamental idea behind VICs is that expensive global image processing with user modeling and tracking is not necessary in general vision-based HCI. Instead, interface components operating under simple-to-complex rules in local image regions provide more robust and less costly functionality with 3 spatial dimensions and 1 temporal dimension. A prototype realization of the 4DT platform is presented; it operates through a set of planar homographies with uncalibrated cameras.