{"id":26688,"date":"2024-03-14T15:25:58","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T14:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intellias.com\/?p=26688"},"modified":"2024-07-01T17:41:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T15:41:26","slug":"hand-tracking-and-gesture-recognition-using-ai-applications-and-challenges","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/intellias.com\/hand-tracking-and-gesture-recognition-using-ai-applications-and-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand Tracking and Gesture Recognition Using AI: Applications and Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Snap your fingers and make your coffee maker brew you a fresh cup. Wave a hand near your smart TV and switch on today\u2019s weather forecast. Tap a finger near your smartwatch and set an alarm in your child\u2019s bedroom. How great would it be to get things done just by gesturing? It\u2019s not that unrealistic anymore: hand tracking and gesture recognition technologies are penetrating multiple industries. But do we really need capabilities like these? And what is the true value of real-time hand gesture recognition (HGR)?<\/p>\n

Gesturing is a natural and intuitive way to interact with people and the environment. So it makes perfect sense to use hand gestures as a method of human-computer interaction (HCI). But there are quite a few challenges, starting from needing to wave your hands in front of your small smartphone screen and ending with the complex machine learning algorithms<\/a> needed to recognize more than a simple thumbs up. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Let\u2019s find out, starting from definitions and moving to the technical details.
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The need for gesture recognition technology<\/h2>\n

Markets and Markets that the gesture recognition market will reach $32.3 billion in 2025, up from $9.8 billion in 2020. Today\u2019s top producers of gesture interface products are, unsurprisingly, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. The key industries driving mass adoption of touchless tech are automotive, healthcare, and consumer electronics.<\/p>\n

Gesture recognition market in China, 2014\u20132025<\/b>
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Grand View Research<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Keep in mind that hand tracking and gesture recognition are not the same things. Both technologies are supposed to use hands for human-machine interaction (HMI) without touching, switching, or employing controllers. Sometimes, systems for hand tracking and gesture recognition require the use of markers, gloves, or sensors, but the ideal system requires nothin but a human hand.<\/p>\n

Systems employing gesture recognition technology are only capable of distinguishing specific gestures: thumbs up, wave, peace sign, rock sign, etc. Hand tracking is more complex: it provides more variability in the HMI, since it tracks hand size, finger position, and other characteristics. The number of potential interactions with digital objects is limitless, but overlapping, occlusion, and interpretation issues occur. While AI in the gesture recognition system is only trained to identify a limited number of gestures and is less flexible than hand tracking technology, it doesn\u2019t suffer from the same issues.<\/p>\n

Why may people want to use gestures instead of just touching or tapping a device? A desire for contactless sensing and hygiene concerns are the top drivers of demand for touchless technology. Gesture recognition can also provide better ergonomics for consumer devices. Another market driver is the rise of biometric systems in many areas of people\u2019s lives, from cars to homes to shops.<\/p>\n

During the coronavirus pandemic, it\u2019s not surprising that people are reluctant to use touchscreens in public places. Moreover, for drivers, tapping a screen can be dangerous, as it distracts them from the road. In other cases, tapping small icons or accidentally clicking on the wrong field increases frustration and makes people look for a better customer experience. Real-time hand gesture recognition for computer interactions is just the next step in technological evolution, and it\u2019s ideally suited for today\u2019s consumer landscape. Besides using gestures when you cannot conveniently touch equipment, hand tracking can be applied in augmented and virtual reality environments, sign language recognition, gaming, and other use cases.<\/p>\n

The high cost of touchless sensing products is one of the major challenges of this technology, along with the complexity of software development for HGR. To create a robust system that detects hand positions, a hand tracking solution requires the implementation of advanced machine learning and deep learning algorithms, among other things.
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Hand tracking and gesture recognition with AI: How does it work?<\/h2>\n

Gesture recognition provides real-time data to a computer to make it fulfill the user\u2019s commands. Motion sensors in a device can track and interpret gestures, using them as the primary source of data input. A majority of gesture recognition solutions feature a combination of 3D depth-sensing cameras and infrared cameras together with machine learning systems. Machine learning algorithms are trained based on labeled depth images of hands, allowing them to recognize hand and finger positions.<\/p>\n

Gesture recognition consists of three basic levels:<\/p>\n