Gesture Recognition Utilizing a 3-Axis Motion-Enabled Device

There are currently many different types of inexpensive input devices available to consumers, each of which excels at performing a specific type of task. For instance, mice provide accurate pointing; keyboards are useful for rapid input of characters, and touch pads offer a compact means for mobile device input. However situations arise wherein these devices are awkward to use and do not fully utilize the abilities of the user. One situation where this occurs is when attempting to recognize 2-dimensional gestures in 3-dimensional space. One device that is preferable to many in this area is the Wii remote, which contains accelerometers to track movement in 3-dimensional space. Current methods for interpreting gestures performed with this device require that the user train the gesture in advance. However, situations may arise wherein training the system is inconvenient or impossible. To address this issue, we have investigated a method of recognizing 2-dimensional gestures with the Wii remote device without requiring that the user train the gesture in advance