Survey and Investigation of Hand Motion Processing Technologies for Compliance With Shape Conceptualization

An evergreen topic of human-computer interaction research is multi-modality. It has been considered important for the user interface of future computer aided conceptual design systems and what is hoped is that integration of, for instance, voice control, hand gesture/motion processing, and physical object scanning can increase both the semantic level and the efficiency of the interaction. In the area of computer mediated shape conceptualization, especially human hand motion detection and processing can play an important role. The authors’ research focuses on the study of the opportunities offered by hand motion processing in shape conceptualization. As a first step they have studied the state of the art and analyzed the technologies applicable to hand motion processing. This paper reports on the findings. The various technologies have been sorted in four categories: direct incomplete, direct complete, indirect incomplete and indirect complete detection. First, the principles supporting this categorization are explained in Section 2. The next four sections of the paper investigate the hand motion detection and processing technologies. Section 7 discusses the characteristics and operational parameters from the aspect of using hand motion for shape input in conceptual design. Our conclusion is that the currently known technologies do not absolutely support processing of a language of hand motions that is under development for creative shape conceptualization. Therefore, the hand motion language needs to be redesigned and adapted to the best technology.