Near Touch Interaction

A system for determining near touch interaction, comprising:

• a display for displaying one or more elements thereon;
• one or more stereo camera pairs positioned adjacent to the display;
• and
• a processor for causing the display to flash one or more structured light sequences using the light sources that illuminate the display on a user pointer placed adjacent to the display, determining a depth map in accordance with information acquired by the stereo camera pair, and if desired, employing the one or more structured light sequences to possibly refine the depth map, wherein the display produces patterns targeting only regions of the field-of view where the depth refinement is determined to be beneficial.

A method for determining near touch interaction by a user object, comprising the steps of:

• displaying on a display one or more objects;
• acquiring one or more images of the user object by one or more pairs of stereo cameras located adjacent to the display;
• dewarping the one or more acquired images;
• computing a disparity based upon the dewarped images;
• identifying one or more target regions of the display adjacent to one or more corresponding portions of the disparity that may benefit from refinement, and displaying one or more screen tessellations therein using the light sources that illuminate the display.