Hands-on approach

A research team has unveiled gesture control technology claimed to be cheap and simple enough to be integrated into a wide range of everyday consumer electronics.

team has developed pattern recognition software that helps computers understand human gestures. Project manager Valiantsin Hardzeyeu said the software, GestureID, can be easily integrated into any type of video camera and installed inside such devices as PCs, TVs and satnav devices.

'Our work is based on optical pattern recognition,' he said. 'This technique mimics the way humans see things.'

His team modelled vision processes from the point where the photons hit the retina to the stage at which they are processed in the visual cortex.

The system works with a standard webcam that records the surrounding environment. The GestureID software detects if there are any human hand or hands in the frame. If there are, the system filters out all unnecessary information, extracting only the human hand/hands from the initial image.