IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20120314902A1
• Filed: 05/31/2012
• Published: 12/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: KIMURA, Jun, Ohba, Akiko
• Granted Patent: US 8,923,559 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• 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: G06T 2207/10004 Still image; Photographic image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/70 Determining position or orientation of objects or cameras camera calibration G06T7/80
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/28 Recognition of hand or arm movements, e.g. recognition of deaf sign language static hand signs G06V40/113

Abstract

Provided is an image processing apparatus including a hand shape recognition unit that performs hand shape recognition on an input image to detect a position and a size of a hand with a specific shape in the input image, a determination region setting unit that sets a region in a vicinity of the hand on the input image as a determination region used to recognize a gesture performed using the hand, based on the position and the size of the hand, and a gesture recognition unit that recognizes the gesture by monitoring movement of the hand to the determination region.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

a hand shape recognition unit that performs hand shape recognition on an input image to detect a position and a size of a hand with a specific shape in the input image;

a determination region setting unit that sets a region in a vicinity of the hand on the input image as a determination region used to recognize a gesture performed using the hand, based on the position and the size of the hand; and

a gesture recognition unit that recognizes the gesture by monitoring movement of the hand to the determination region.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination region setting unit sets a plurality of the determination regions in the vicinity of the hand on the input image.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the plurality of determination regions are regions used to recognize a plurality of the gestures different from each other.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising:

a processing unit that performs a process in accordance with a result of gesture recognition.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the gesture recognition unit recognizes the gesture by comparing a color extracted from a region of the detected hand with a color of the determination region on the input image.

6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the gesture recognition unit recognizes the gesture by monitoring the movement of the hand to the determination region based on a difference between frames of the input image.

7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the hand shape recognition unit detects positions and sizes of hands with a plurality of shapes determined in advance.

8. The image processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein, when a position and a size of the hand with a specific shape are newly detected, the determination region setting unit sets the determination region based on the newly detected shape, position, and size of the hand.

9. An image processing method of an image processing apparatus including a hand shape recognition unit that performs hand shape recognition on an input image to detect a position and a size of a hand with a specific shape in the input image, a determination region setting unit that sets a region in a vicinity of the hand on the input image as a determination region used to recognize a gesture performed using the hand, based on the position and the size of the hand, and a gesture recognition unit that recognizes the gesture by monitoring movement of the hand to the determination region, the image processing method comprising:

detecting the position and size of the hand with the specific shape by the hand shape recognition unit;

setting the determination region by the determination region setting unit; and

recognizing the gesture by the gesture recognition unit.

10. A program for causing a computer to execute a process including:

performing hand shape recognition on an input image to detect a position and a size of a hand with a specific shape in the input image;

setting a region in a vicinity of the hand on the input image as a determination region used to recognize a gesture performed using the hand, based on the position and the size of the hand; and

recognizing the gesture by monitoring movement of the hand to the determination region.