The visual keyboard: Real-time feet tracking for the control of musical meta-instruments

This paper proposes a new perceptual interface for the control of computer-based music production. We address the constraints imposed by the use of musical meta-instruments during live performance or rehearsal by tracking feet motion relatively to a visual keyboard. The visual attribute stands for the fact that, unlike its physical counterpart, our keyboard does not involve any force feedback during key-presses. The proposed tracking algorithm is structured on two levels, namely a coarse level for foot regions, and a fine level for foot tips. Tracking works in real-time and handles efficiently feet regions merging/unmerging due to spatial proximity and cast shadows. The output of the tracking is used for the spatiotemporal detection of key-“press” events.