Imaging surround system for touch-free display control

• US 9,524,021 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2014
• Issued: 12/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: California Institute of Technology
• Original Assignee: California Institute of Technology
• Inventors: Gharib, Morteza, Jeon, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Jr., Kenneth B
• Application Number:
  US14/319,653
• Publication Number:
  US 20150009149A1
• Time in Patent Office: 904 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/005 Input arrangements through a video camera
• 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 3/021 Arrangements integrating additional peripherals in a keyboard, e.g. card or barcode reader, optical scanner
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0227 Cooperation and interconnection of the input arrangement with other functional units of a computer G06F3/023 - G06F3/037 take precedence
• 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: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16

Abstract

The subject system hardware and methodology combine disparate cameras into a cohesive gesture recognition environment. To render an intended computer, gaming, display, etc. control function, two or more cameras with non-coaxial axes are trained on a space to detect and lock onto an object image regardless of its depth coordinate. Each camera captures one 2D view of the gesture and the plurality of 2D gestures are combined to infer the 3D input.

Claims

1. A system for input gesture recognition, comprising:

a first camera having a first optical axis;

a second camera having a second optical axis;

a computer processor, wherein the first and second cameras are connected for data transmission to the computer processor; and

a non-transitory memory having a plurality of instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the computer processor to compare images from the first and second cameras and recognize user hand input gestures without the performance of stereo imaging calculations,

wherein the first and second optical axes are angled with respect to one another by at least about 30 degrees.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical axes are angled by at least about 60 degrees.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical axes are angle by about 90 degrees.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instructions, when executed, cause the computer processor to compare images from the first and second cameras and recognize user hand input gestures without the triangulation of matched features within the images.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instructions, when executed, cause the computer processor to compare images from the first and second cameras and recognize user hand input gestures without reference to the angle between the first and second optical axes.

6. The system of claim 1, comprising a first housing and a second housing separate from the first, the first camera adapted to be set in the first housing and the second camera adapted to be set in the second housing.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the first camera is adapted to be set in the first housing with a primary display.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the second camera is adapted to be set within a smart phone.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the second camera is adapted to be set within a tablet computer.

10. The system of claim 7, comprising a laptop computer comprising a keyboard panel section, wherein the primary display is the display of the laptop computer.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the second camera is housed in the keyboard panel section.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the second camera is adapted to be housed in a smart phone and the system is adapted such that the smart phone is positionable on a plane parallel with and in front of the keyboard panel section.

13. The system of claim 7, comprising a laptop computer and a boom, wherein the primary display is the display of the laptop computer and the second camera is positionable above the laptop computer by the boom.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the boom is adapted to be connected to a laptop computer docking station.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the first and second cameras are wirelessly connected for data transmission.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instructions, when executed, cause the computer processor to perform scale invariant feature recognition for successive images from each camera and generate an output signal corresponding to a gesture from a look-up table corresponding to features recognized from the scale invariant feature recognition.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the successive images are not sequential.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a third camera off-axis from at least one of the first and second cameras.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instructions, when executed, cause the computer processor to compare images from the first and second cameras to recognize user hand input gestures without 3D object reconstruction.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the plurality of instructions, when executed, cause the computer processor to recognize a gesture motion.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to recognize hand input gestures alone.