Human gesture recognition using three-dimensional integral imaging

Three-dimensional (3D) integral imaging allows one to reconstruct a 3D scene, including range information, and provides sectional refocused imaging of 3D objects at different ranges. This paper explores the potential use of 3D passive sensing integral imaging for human gesture recognition tasks from sequences of reconstructed 3D video scenes. As a preliminary testbed, the 3D integral imaging sensing is implemented using an array of cameras with the appropriate algorithms for 3D scene reconstruction. Recognition experiments are performed by acquiring 3D video scenes of multiple hand gestures performed by ten people. We analyze the capability and performance of gesture recognition using 3D integral imaging representations at given distances and compare its performance with the use of standard two-dimensional (2D) single-camera videos. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on using 3D integral imaging for human gesture recognition. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America