Robust Real-Time 3D Time-of-Flight Based Gesture Navigation

Contactless Human-Machine-Interfaces (HMIs) are an important issue in various applications where a haptic interaction with an input device is not possible or not appropriate. Newly developed Time-of-Flight cameras provide 3D information of the observed scene in real-time at constant lateral resolutions of thousands of pixels. Additionally, a gray-value image of the observed scene is available. The paper compromises three major contributions: First, the robust and real-time capable segmentation of the hand by incorporating 3D and gray-value information; Second, the reliable classification of the performed static gesture using robust features; Third, the design of an HMI which uses the classified gesture as well as the 3D position of the hand to enable complex and convenient user interactions