6.

CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND

FUTURE DIRECTIVES

The study implements a camera based interactive display system using

openCV and .net Windows API. The output program is generally successful in

detecting fingers and serving as human-computer interaction device with limiting

conditions on distance, lighting, and graphics display. The projected background

which is the map of De La Salle University Manila was created using Macromedia

Flash 8.

A low cost PC camera and base model projector is used. Their specifications

are enough to produce a mobile setup of the prototype. The PC camera limits the

distance from 1m to 3.5m and base model projector prevents complex keystone

adjustments. With this in consideration, the final setup of the camera-projector

combination should be near each other and near the wall.

Our implementation of the fingertip finding model produces results that

reliably finds fingertips of the correct size and with good tolerances. However it is

sensitive to false detections to anything that looks like fingertips after thresholding.

This occurs in a small percentage of the time but can be a significant factor in the

effective operation of the prototype. Light colored clothing can also be a problem

consdering it can be thresholded differently with its cracks and folds. But generally

for a properly set up system, this is not a problem for most users.

Experimentation results show that for a distance between 1 and 2 m the

parameters indicated in table 6-1 are prescribed to be use. These values represent the

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best compromise between tolerance and accuracy for use in the system as found in

experimentation.

Parameter, coding variable Value

Finger Diameter, fdiam 4 or 6 pixels
Maximum Chain Length, 1.75*frad
square pixel_max
Search Square Size, square_dist Frad + 2
Threshold value, thresh_val 0.20
Frames to Click, click_speed 3
Table 6-1. Summary of Prescribed Values

The results of the survey show that the system is indeed working in real time

and that the users are satisfied. Of the 30 respondents, a great majority, 93.4% say

they are satisfied or highly satisfied with our system. Similarly, 96.3% say that they

agree or strongly agree that the system is real time. The system does not 100% of

the time, operate perfectly with instabilities in the wide range of actions of the public

users. But despite this though the users are satisfied with the general performance of

our system. The study created an easy to learn and use interactive display that is

fairly invariant to external lighting and skin colour.

For recommendations, Experiments show that use of a single color

component is a feasible method instead of the use of grayscale conversion. With the

proper setup a single color mode can outperform the grayscale counterpart. By itself

the program can still gain more stability by adding historical data analysis on each of

the detected fingers, not allowing fingers to suddenly appear or disappear. Increasing

stability and reliability for complex coloured projections will improve the usability

of the program but may involve changing the image processing procedures. On a

hardware level, using a thermal IR camera will remove the limitations on the GUI

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since the detection will no longer be affected by visible projections but instead to

infrared light. Changing the acquisition library from the OpenCV’s highgui.h to

either OpenCV’s cvcam.h or Microsoft’s DirectShow will allow use for higher

performance cameras but of course coupled with a high performance processor to

match the increased resolution.

As a future directive, adding a higher level of detection involving connecting

fingers to its respective hands will allow multiple hand interaction coupled with an

API that allows for multiple input such as those for touch screen/tablet PCs. Basic

gestures other than pointing, such as pulling, pushing, rotating, zooming and such

are recent developments in touch screen interfaces. Applying it to an interactive

projected display will be a rewarding but challenging task.