DISTANCE SCALABLE NO TOUCH COMPUTING

• US 20110119640A1
• Filed: 11/19/2009
• Published: 05/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: LeGrow, Ian, Calvin, John, Berkes, Otto G., Bathiche, Steven, Molnar, Joseph Reginald Scott
• Granted Patent: US 8,843,857 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/863
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0304 Detection arrangements using opto-electronic means constructional details of pointing devices not related to the detection arrangement using opto-electronic means G06F3/033; optical digitisers G06F3/042
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/242 Division of the character sequences into groups prior to recognition; Selection of dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16

Abstract

Disclosed herein are techniques for scaling and translating gestures such that the applicable gestures for control may vary depending on the user'"'"'s distance from a gesture-based system. The techniques for scaling and translation may take the varying distances from which a user interacts with components of the gesture-based system, such as a computing environment or capture device, into consideration with respect to defining and/or recognizing gestures. In an example embodiment, the physical space is divided into virtual zones of interaction, and the system may scale or translate a gesture based on the zones. A set of gesture data may be associated with each virtual zone such that gestures appropriate for controlling aspects of the gesture-based system may vary throughout the physical space.

Claims

1. A method for gesture recognition, the method comprising:

capturing data of a physical space, wherein the captured data is representative of a user and a user'"'"'s gesture in the physical space;

identifying a position of the user in the physical space, from the captured data, relative to a virtual zone, wherein (i) the virtual zone is one virtual zone in a plurality of virtual zones, (ii) each of said plurality of virtual zones is representative of a respective portion of the physical space,

comparing the captured data to gesture data associated with the virtual zone;

identifying the user'"'"'s gesture from the gesture data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the gesture data associated with the virtual zone is a set of gesture data associated with the virtual zone, wherein each of said plurality of virtual zones is associated with a respective set of gesture data.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a change in the position of the user, wherein the changed position is relative to a second virtual zone in the plurality of virtual zones;

comparing the captured data to gesture data associated with the second virtual zone.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a transition of the comparison of the captured data between gesture data associated with the plurality of virtual zones is seamless to the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identification of the user'"'"'s gesture is performed in real time with respect to capturing the data of the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the position of the user relative to the virtual zone is a position within a boundary of the virtual zone.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the captured data is captured by a plurality of capture devices, wherein the captured data from each of said plurality of capture devices is merged for comparison to the at least one of the sets of gesture data.

8. A method for gesture recognition, the method comprising:

capturing data of a physical space, wherein the captured data is representative of a user and a user'"'"'s gesture in the physical space;

correlating a position of the user in the physical space to a plurality of virtual zones, wherein each of said plurality of virtual zones is representative of a respective portion of the physical space,

determining a preferred detection order for the plurality of virtual zones,

comparing the captured data to gesture data according to an ordering of sets of the gesture data, wherein (i) each of said plurality of virtual zones is associated with a respective set of gesture data, and (ii) the ordering of the sets of gesture data is in accordance with the preferred detection order of the plurality of virtual zones associated with each set of gesture data; and

identifying the user'"'"'s gesture from at least one of the sets of gesture data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the user'"'"'s position correlates to a virtual zone when at least one of (i) the position of the user is within the portion of the physical space represented by the virtual zone, (ii) the position of the user is within a predetermined distance from the portion of the physical space represented by the virtual zone, or (iii) the position of the user is adjacent to a boundary of the virtual zone.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the user'"'"'s position correlates to first and second virtual zones, wherein the first and second virtual zones represent an overlapping portion of the physical space and the user'"'"'s position is within the overlapping portion of the physical space.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the preferred detection order of the plurality of virtual zones is determined based on a probabilistic approach.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein a gesture does not correspond to the set of gesture data associated with a first virtual zone in the preferred detection order of the plurality of virtual zones, wherein the gesture does correspond to a second set of gesture data associated with another of the plurality of virtual zones in the preferred detection order, and identifying the user'"'"'s gesture from the second set of gesture data.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the user'"'"'s position correlates to two virtual zones when the user'"'"'s position crosses a boundary between the two virtual zones within a predetermined time period, wherein the sets of gesture data associated with each of the two virtual zones is given the same order in the preferred detection order such that comparing captured data to the gesture data comprises comparing the captured data to both sets of gesture data.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the preferred detection order of the plurality of virtual zones is an order corresponding to an increasing distance of the position of the user to each of the plurality of virtual zones.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the preferred detection order of the plurality of virtual zones is an order corresponding to an level of correlation between the captured data representative of the user'"'"'s gesture and the gesture data in the sets of gesture data associated with each of the plurality of virtual zones.

16. A method for associating sets of gesture data to virtual zones in a physical space, the method comprising:

capturing data from a capture device, wherein the captured data is representative of the physical space;

identifying virtual zones, wherein each of said virtual zones is representative of a respective portion of the physical space;

associating a set of gesture data to each of said virtual zones.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the set of gestures associated with each of said virtual zones are scaled proportionate to a distance of the respective virtual zone from the capture device.

18. The method of claim 16, gesture data in a first set of gesture data and gesture data in a second set of gesture data both correspond to a control in a gesture-based system, wherein the first and second sets of gesture data are each associated with a respective virtual zone.

19. The method of claim 16, a user can change preferences for the set of gesture data associated with the at least one of the virtual zones.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the portion of the physical space represented by a virtual zone is determined based on a type of input applicable for the portion of the physical space, the type of input being at least one of a touch-screen input, a finger-scale input, a body-scale input, a small motion input, or a large motion input.