Systems and methods of determining interaction intent in three-dimensional (3D) sensory space

A system for determining intent for an interaction between a hand in a three-dimensional (3D) sensory space and a movable virtual object in a virtual space that the hand interacts with, the system including:

• a camera based sensor;
• and
• a processor and a computer readable storage medium storing computer instructions configured to cause the processor to:
• define at distal ends of fingers of a hand that serves as a control object, a plurality of feeler zones for display upon establishing one or more points of virtual contacts between the distal ends of fingers of the hand and corresponding locations anywhere on any surface of a virtual object, each feeler zone, of the feeler zones, representing a virtual location in the virtual space that corresponds to a location tangent to a particular finger of the hand in the 3D sensory space, as tracked by the camera based sensor;
• responsive to detecting a hand-gesture made by the fingers or the hand, apply forces to the movable virtual object at the one or more points of virtual contacts established by the feeler zones at the distal ends of fingers of a hand with the corresponding locations anywhere on any surface of the virtual object;
• and
• manipulate the virtual object according to the forces applied by the feeler zones at distal ends of fingers of a hand that serves as a control object.

One or more non-transitory computer readable media having instructions stored thereon for performing a method of determining intent for an interaction between a hand in a three-dimensional (3D) sensory space and a movable virtual object in a virtual space that the hand interacts with, the method including:

• defining at distal ends of fingers of a hand that serves as a control object, a plurality of feeler zones for display upon establishing one or more points of virtual contacts between the distal ends of fingers of the hand and corresponding locations anywhere on any surface of a virtual object, each feeler zone, of the feeler zones, representing a virtual location in the virtual space that corresponds to a location tangent to a particular finger of the hand in the 3D sensory space, as tracked by a camera based sensor;
• responsive to detecting a hand-gesture made only by the fingers or the hand, applying forces to the movable virtual object at the one or more points of virtual contacts established by the feeler zones at the distal ends of fingers of a hand with the corresponding locations anywhere on any surface of the virtual object;
• and
• manipulating the virtual object according to the forces applied by the feeler zones at distal ends of fingers of a hand that serves as a control object.