Data Glove That Turns Gestures Into Commands

ravidew writes: "Three students at Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, have built a motion-sensing glove that can transmit hand gestures to a PC. Within 3 years they hope to build sensors that are no bigger than 1mm and can be glued to each fingernail. Now you can really tell Windows what you think ..." While you're at the Sensor and Actuator Center, check out Kris Pister's smart dust.

Comments

Me like....

[Kencordia]

f/p?

Anyone remember Nintendo's glove-thingy? That was *awesome* for Punch-out!

Here's some other, slightly more useful links.

[Cutriss]

Development info and software available

Adapted uses of the Power Glove to VR world navigation

History of the Power Glove

I remember those things.

[corvi42]

It was called a Nintendo Power-Glove.
I've also seen schematics & drivers so that you can connect your power glove to a serial port & use it as a mouse replacement.

Re:I remember those things.

[hackerhue]

As an add-on to my last post, this also seems to be quite different from the Power-Glove. IIRC, the Power-Glove used metal strips to detect the bending of the fingers. It also required an L-shaped set of three receivers to be attached to the side of your TV, and used audio signals (sub-sonic frequencies, IIRC) to determine the location of the hand in 3-space.

This thing, on the other hand (no pun intended, honest!), uses accelerometers, which are probably more reliable than the metal strips, and don't require any receivers. The down-side is that it won't give you an absolute position, unless you do some calibration (but the Power-Glove didn't do that either).

Been there, done that, love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the same thing at UIUC back in '97...

I used dual 3-axis accelerometers for the hand motion, and discrete switches to determine
finger joint position. The wires were sewn into the glove directly.

The result was very accurate hand movement, with the trade off of less complex finger movements.

Needless to say, I like the idea. It is a _very_ natural interface for a lot of applications. The glove is a little unwieldy, but for some reason beyond comprehension, everyone who does this seems to build theirs around the heaviest winter glove they can find... What someone needs to do is to build this using discreet sealed components, on the outside of thin, air-holed neoprene (similar to a bicyclist's glove.)

Also, the software is the key to whether this really works out. You need a virtual keyboard app (similar to what pen laptops use), plus a gesture pad (a la grafitti or CAD gestures), plus a standard mouse driver. (I never got around to polshing my software beyond anywhere other than manipulating a Rubik's-style 3D Cube. No, you couldn't acutally solve it.)

Johny Mnemonic, Anyone?

[ColGraff]

Yes, I know it wasn't the best movie ever made, but it had the goofiest dataglove gestures I've even seen or imagined. Gave new meaning to pointlessness. (Much like this post).

Re:Great keyboard replacement for handhelds

[Squeeze Truck]

Now that I think about it, I don't think this will replace keyboards until they can simulate some kind of tactile feedback to the user. (force-feedback smart dust?)

Those roll-out mat keyboards have been around for some time. They drive touch typists nuts because they don't "feel" anything like typing.

I personally still use an 8-pound IBM PS/2 keyboard because I crave the clickety-clack of those wonderful mechanical switches.

Re: nice peace of hardware

[Karoshi]

Some more information can be found at the FAQ.
And some images are located there:

Nothing new

[Hasie]

There's a little company in Pretoria (in South Africa) called 5DT that has been producing data gloves that can be used as a mouse for quite a while now. Check out these links.
Their homepage.
Their hardware page (includes data gloves).
One of the data glove pages.