Method for recognizing gesture and electronic device

• US 9,256,777 B2
• Filed: 11/29/2012
• Issued: 02/09/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Original Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Inventors: Chang, Wen-Yung
• Primary Examiner(s): Thirugnanam, Gandhi
• Application Number:
  US13/688,215
• Publication Number:
  US 20140119596A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/107 Static hand or arm
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16

Abstract

A method for recognizing a gesture adopted by an electronic device to recognize a gesture of at least a hand. In the method, a hand image of the hand is captured and the hand image includes a hand region. A geometric center of the hand region is calculated. At least a concentric circle is disposed on the hand region with the geometric center as the center of the concentric circles. A number of intersection points of each concentric circle and the hand region is calculated respectively to determine a feature vector of the gesture. According to the feature vector, a hand recognition is performed to recognize the gesture of the hand.

Claims

1. A gesture recognition method for an electronic device to recognize a gesture of at least a hand, the gesture recognition method comprising:

capturing a hand image of the hand, wherein the hand image includes a hand region;

calculating a geometric center of the hand region;

deploying at least a concentric circle on the hand image with the geometric center as a center of the concentric circles;

counting the number of a plurality of intersection points of the edge of the hand region on each of the concentric circles respectively to determine a feature vector of the gesture; and

according to the feature vector, performing a hand recognition to recognize the gesture of the hand.

2. The gesture recognition method of claim 1, wherein the step of deploying the concentric circles on the hand image comprises:

regarding a distance between the geometric center and a wrist joint of the hand in the hand image as a maximum radius; and

evenly deploying the concentric circles within a range corresponding to the maximum radius with the geometric center as the center, wherein the maximum radius divided by a number of the concentric circles is larger than or equal to 1.

3. The gesture recognition method of claim 1, wherein the feature vector includes a plurality of components and each of the components corresponds to one of the concentric circles and the number of the intersection points of the concentric circle to the hand region is equal to the component corresponding to the concentric circle.

4. The gesture recognition method of claim 3, wherein the electronic device comprises a storage device recording a plurality of standard gestures and a plurality of standard vectors respectively corresponding to the standard gestures, and the gesture recognition comprises:

evenly dividing the components in the feature vector to form a plurality of sub-vectors;

calculating an average component value of each of the sub-vectors;

sampling at least one of the average component values respectively corresponding to the sub-vectors to form an average vector;

calculating an error value between the average vector and each of the standard vectors; and

according to the error values, determining the gesture corresponding to the hand image.

5. The gesture recognition method of claim 4, wherein the step of evenly dividing the components in the feature vector comprises:

using twenty percentage of a number of the concentric circles as a dividing basis, evenly dividing the components in the feature vector to respectively form the sub-vectors.

6. The gesture recognition method of claim 3, wherein the electronic device comprises a storage device and the storage device records a plurality of standard gestures and a plurality of intersection point ranges respectively corresponding to the standard gestures, and the gesture recognition comprises:

according to the feature vector, determining a maximum component among the components in the feature vector;

sampling all concentric circles between the concentric circle corresponding to the maximum component and the concentric circle corresponding to a sub-maximum radius, wherein the sub-maximum radius is only smaller than a maximum radius which is a distance between the geometric center and a wrist joint of the hand in the hand image;

averaging the components respectively corresponding to the sampled concentric circles to obtain an average number of the intersection points;

according to the intersection point ranges recorded in the storage device, determining the average number of the intersection points to be within one of the intersection point ranges; and

determining the standard gesture corresponding to the determined intersection point range to be the gesture corresponding to the hand image.

7. An electronic device, comprising:

an image capturing device, capturing a hand image of the hand, wherein the hand image includes a hand region;

a storage device, storing a computer readable and writable software;

a processor, executing a plurality of commands of the computer readable and writable software, wherein the commands comprises;

calculating a geometric center of the hand region;

deploying at least a concentric circle on the hand image with the geometric center as a center of the concentric circles;

counting the number of a plurality of intersection points of the edge of the hand region on each of the concentric circles respectively to determine a feature vector of the gesture; and

according to the feature vector, performing a hand recognition to recognize the gesture of the hand.

8. The electronic device of claim 7, wherein the command of deploying the concentric circles on the hand image comprises:

regarding a distance between the geometric center and a wrist joint of the hand in the hand image as a maximum radius; and

evenly deploying the concentric circles within a range corresponding to the maximum radius with the geometric center as the center, wherein the maximum radius divided by a number of the concentric circles is larger than or equal to 1.

9. The electronic device of claim 7, wherein the feature vector includes a plurality of components and each of the components corresponds to one of the concentric circles and the number of the intersection points of the concentric circle to the hand region is equal to the component corresponding to the concentric circle.

10. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the storage device records a plurality of standard gestures and a plurality of standard vectors respectively corresponding to the standard gestures, and the gesture recognition comprises:

evenly dividing the components in the feature vector to form a plurality of sub-vectors;

calculating an average component value of each of the sub-vectors;

sampling at least one of the average component values respectively corresponding to the sub-vectors to form an average vector;

calculating an error value between the average vector and each of the standard vectors; and

according to the error values, determining the gesture corresponding to the hand image.

11. The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the command of evenly dividing the components in the feature vector comprises:

using twenty percentage of a number of the concentric circles as a dividing basis, evenly dividing the components in the feature vector to respectively form the sub-vectors.

12. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the storage device records a plurality of standard gestures and a plurality of intersection point ranges respectively corresponding to the standard gestures, and the gesture recognition comprises:

according to the feature vector, determining a maximum component among the components in the feature vector;

sampling all concentric circles between the concentric circle corresponding to the maximum component and the concentric circle corresponding to a sub-maximum radius, wherein the sub-maximum radius is only smaller than a maximum radius which is a distance between the geometric center and a wrist joint of the hand in the hand image;

averaging the components respectively corresponding to the sampled concentric circles to obtain an average number of the intersection points;

according to the intersection point ranges recorded in the storage device, determining the average number of the intersection points to be within one of the intersection point ranges; and

determining the standard gesture corresponding to the determined intersection point range to be the gesture corresponding to the hand image.