Abstract:

A method and system for recognizing hand signs that include overlapping or adjoining hands from a depth image. A linked structure comprising multiple segments is generated from the depth image including overlapping or adjoining hands. The hand pose of the overlapping or adjoining hands is determined using either (i) a constrained optimization process in which a cost function and constraint conditions are used to classify segments of the linked graph to two hands or (ii) a tree search process in which a tree structure including a plurality of nodes is used to obtain the most-likely hand pose represented by the depth image. After determining the hand pose, the segments of the linked structure are matched with stored shapes to determine the sign represented by the depth image.

Description:

CROSS-REFERENCE To RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/129,164 titled “Sign Based Human-Machine Interaction” filed on May 12, 2005 by Fujimura et al. and published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0271279, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to human-machine interaction, and more particularly to recognizing hand signs in sign language.

2. Description of Background Art

With the advent of super-fast computing systems and highly efficient digital imaging systems, the field of computer vision based man-machine interaction has undergone a period of significant technological advancements. From simple motion detection systems where motion triggers a response from a machine (e.g., surveillance systems) to highly complex three-dimensional (“3D”) imaging sign recognition systems have been the subject of significant development in the last few years. For example, in the area of sign based human-machine commun ...

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