Rotatable Wrist Cameras for Natural Hand Tracking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems for tracking user hand movements in gaming devices require users to hold controllers or wear gloves, limiting movement range and causing inconvenience and hygiene issues.
Innovation Solution
The use of rotatably placed cameras embedded in wearable devices on the wrists, which capture image data to determine the position and orientation of hands and arms, allowing for more natural and hygienic interaction with virtual environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If users wear tracking gloves to capture hand movements, then hand tracking capability is improved, but hygiene is deteriorated and convenience is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the camera from the glove and places it on the wrist, eliminating the need to wear a glove while maintaining hand tracking capability. The wrist-mounted camera captures images of the hand, providing the same tracking function without the hygiene and convenience issues of wearing a glove.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary approach where the camera on the wrist captures images of the hand rather than having the camera directly on the hand. This intermediary positioning allows for natural hand movement without encumbrance while still enabling accurate hand tracking through image capture.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users hold controllers to interact with virtual environments, then interaction capability is improved, but movement range is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the interaction capability from the controller and relocates it to the hand itself through camera-based tracking. This eliminates the physical constraint of holding a controller, allowing users to move their hands freely within the environment while maintaining interaction capability through gesture recognition.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical controller system with an optical/image-based tracking system. Instead of requiring physical contact with a controller, the system uses cameras to capture hand movements and translates them into virtual environment interactions, substituting mechanical interaction with optical field-based interaction.
3Stability of the object's composition
If cameras are fixed on wearable devices, then device stability is improved, but tracking accuracy during movement is deteriorated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the camera rotatable on the wrist device. The camera can rotate to maintain optimal positioning and orientation relative to the hand during movement, allowing the device to remain stable on the wrist while the camera dynamically adjusts to maintain tracking accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses periodic image capture at defined intervals to track hand position. This periodic action allows the stable wrist-mounted camera to accurately track moving hands by capturing snapshots at regular time intervals, maintaining both device stability and tracking precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method to identify positions of fingers of a hand is described. The method includes capturing images of a first hand using a plurality of cameras that are part of a wearable device. The wearable device is attached to a wrist of a second hand and the plurality of cameras of the wearable device is disposed around the wearable device. The method includes repeating capturing of additional images of the first hand, the images and the additional images captured to produce a stream of captured image data during a session of presenting the virtual environment in a head mounted display (HMD). The method includes sending the stream of captured image data to a computing device that is interfaced with the HMD. The computing device is configured to process the captured image data to identify changes in positions of the fingers of the first hand.