My Blog on GESTURETEK…

My Interactive Multimedia class had the great opportunity to visit GestureTek’s showroom in Toronto!

GestureTek is the world leader in gesture-based technology.
http://gesturetek.com/

“Our patented VGC (Video Gesture Control Technology™) has allowed users to be immersed into computer-generated environments and landscapes without the use of joysticks, headgear, keyboards or mice. Users don’t have to wear, hold or touch anything. With over 1600 installations worldwide and clients such as Hasbro, Sony, CNN & NASA, GestureTek continues to be an innovator in VGC Technology.”

The whole experience was amazing! Mr. Vincent John Vincent (President and Founder) was welcoming, professional, clear and open to answer all the questions our group had…

We got to learn a bit more about the company’s history and how it all started. We got to interact with their latest projects and have fun discovering all the effects from the very cool interactive floor and glass screens. We also got to “play” and control with our gestures as “Minority Report” movie style! It was really fun to be able to interact with all the images and elements projected…

GestureTek’s initial product is the “GestureXtreme”, a system that immerses the users live, full body video image on the screen surrounded by computer animation virtual worlds that they could both navigate and manipulate with body gestures. It was a completely new experience for us! We enjoyed the “green room” and be able to see ourselves on the monitor “flying” and playing different games and instruments!

As conclusion, we had a great time and got to learn and immerse ourselves in such a fun and interesting field: “interactivity by gesture control technology”!

Before I say “until next time” I also wanted to share with you some important definitions and some of my findings on the topic:

GESTURE RECOGNITION:

Interface with computers using gestures of the human body, typically hand movements. In gesture recognition technology, a camera reads the movements of the human body and communicates the data to a computer that uses the gestures as input to control devices or applications. For example, a person clapping his hands together in front of a camera can produce the sound of cymbals being crashed together when the gesture is fed through a computer.

One way gesture recognition is being used is to help the physically impaired to interact with computers, such as interpreting sign language. The technology also has the potential to change the way users interact with computers by eliminating input devices such as joysticks, mice and keyboards and allowing the unencumbered body to give signals to the computer through gestures such as finger pointing.

Unlike haptic interfaces, gesture recognition does not require the user to wear any special equipment or attach any devices to the body. The gestures of the body are read by a camera instead of sensors attached to a device such as a data glove.In addition to hand and body movement, gesture recognition technology also can be used to read facial and speech expressions (i.e., lip reading), and eye movements.

Related links

An interesting article written by Vincent John Vincent:
“Let’s get physical: Gesture technology engages consumers”

Minority Report computing is here!
“Straight out of the movie, Minority Report, comes a real interface-free, hands-manipulated computer interface that will blow your mouse and keyboard away. Using one or two hands (or just fingers), the video demonstrates how you can organize, manipulate and shape data in a computer. If you get nostalgic for the old ways, you can call up a keyboard from within the interface.”

New Minority Report Like Touch-screen…
“Monitor development is a field that is given little thought, due to the simple role a monitor plays as part of the computer. Its job is to display the information that is provided from the computer, yet the objective of a monitor is beginning to increase quickly, from the basics of displaying data, to displaying in high quality, to taking little space, and to finally, being an extremely interactive piece of equipment that provides a completely new experience to its users.”

The iGesture replaces clicking with gesturing

McObserver

Gesture Glove NOT Science Fiction
“The movie was actually based on work that we were performing at MIT. So it wasn’t really science fiction … Now, it’s science fact.”

Technology from Minority Report in Real Life