A real-time vision-based hand gesture interaction system for virtual EAST

The virtual Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak device (VEAST) is a very complicated 3D model, to interact with which, the traditional interaction devices are limited and inefficient. However, with the development of human-computer interaction (HCI), the hand gesture interaction has become a much popular choice in recent years. In this paper, we propose a real-time vision-based hand gesture interaction system for VEAST. By using one web camera, we can use our bare hand to interact with VEAST at a certain distance, which proves to be more efficient and direct than mouse. The system is composed of four modules: initialization, hand gesture recognition, interaction control and system settings. The hand gesture recognition method is based on codebook (CB) background modeling and open finger counting. Firstly, we build a background model with CB algorithm. Then, we segment the hand region by detecting skin color regions with “elliptical boundary model” in CbCr flat of YCbCr color space. Open finger which is used as a key feature of gesture can be tracked by an improved curvature-based method. Based on the method, we define nine gestures for interaction control of VEAST. Finally, we design a test to demonstrate effectiveness of our system.