Dynamic, Free-Space User Interactions for Machine Control

A method of controlling a machine, comprising:

• sensing a variation of position of at least one control object moving in a 3 dimensional space in view of an imaging system;
• determining from the variation of position one or more primitives describing at least one motion made in space by the control object;
• comparing the one or more primitives to one or more templates in a library of gesture templates;
• selecting based upon a result of the comparing a set of templates of possible gestures corresponding to the one or more primitives;
• and
• providing at least one of the set of templates of possible gestures as an indication of a command to issue to a machine under control responsive to the variation of position.

A system enabling dynamic user interactions with a device having a display screen, the system comprising:

• at least one sensory device to capture positions and motions of a control object moving in a 3 dimensional space;
• a gesture database comprising a set of electronically stored records, each of the records relating a gesture to an input parameter;
• and
• one or more processors coupled to the sensory device a memory storing computer program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors:
• capture a plurality of temporally sequential positions of the at least one control object;
• analyze the positions of the at least one control object to recognize a gesture performed by the user;
• compare the recognized gesture with records in the gesture database to identify an input parameter associated therewith, the input parameter corresponding to an action for display on the display screen in accordance with a ratio between an actual gesture distance traversed in performance of the gesture and a displayed movement corresponding to the action;
• and
• providing the action for display adjusted based upon the ratio.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium impressed with computer program instructions to control a machine, which instructions, when executed by a processor, implement:

• sensing a variation of position of at least one control object moving in a 3 dimensional space in view of an imaging system;
• determining from the variation of position one or more primitives describing at least one motion made in space by the control object;
• comparing the one or more primitives to one or more templates in a library of gesture templates;
• selecting based upon a result of the comparing a set of templates of possible gestures corresponding to the one or more primitives;
• and
• providing at least one of the set of templates of possible gestures as an indication of a command to issue to a machine under control responsive to the variation of position.
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