Using webcam to track hand gestures

Question

I wanted to develop a program which uses the webcam to track four colours and which are going to be on my index finger and thumb of both my hands and according to the gestures of my hand the computer will interpret these gestures and carry out a command. For example if I have a website open, all I have to do is pinch with my fingers and the webpage will zoom. I wanted the advice of the stackoverflow community as to where to start and whether anyone has any advice for me. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You will certainly want to use OpenCV in one form or another.

Answer 2

Something really similar already exists:

http://incubator.quasimondo.com/flash/minority_cube.php

Answer 3

You could look at Johnny Chung Lee's work with the Wii Remote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjPUkBXOU

You could base your code off the Wiimote library:

http://www.codeplex.com/WiimoteLib

Another angle might be the Aforge Library:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/Motion_Detection.aspx

Code: http://code.google.com/p/aforge/

Answer 4

Take a look at OpenCV, search OpenCV Gesture recognition