Hand Gesture Gloves as seen in "Minority Report"

Gesture Glove
Originally uploaded by KG Prophet.

From NewScientist.com.
The system under development at Raytheon lets users don a pair of reflective gloves and manipulate images projected on a panoramic screen. Raytheon plans to offer the technology as a way to sort through large amounts of satellite imagery and intelligence data. But the technology might also have non-military applications. Completely new user interfaces will inevitably require new ways of visualising and manipulating information. "The biggest benefit comes when you develop a new way of interacting altogether."


I saw this on a technology report on TV(CNN?) a couple days ago. The person demonstrating talked about how gestures like "thumbs up", "ok", etc. could be interpreted as commands in the computer.

Applying One Technology into a Different Field

My mind expanded at that moment. I immediately thought about these possibilities:

-Sign language for the deaf.
-Each finger can act like a mouse point on the screen, you could 'scoop' up files on a screen and arrange them quickly.
-Using two hands, you could be doing 2 tasks at once with each hand.
-"Finger Paint" by having the movement of your hand paint a colour on the screen, or by controlling a virtual brush.
-'Mold' virtual clay into a 3 Dimensional shape.
-'Dig' into data like you were swimming through water.

I am a video editor, and I thought how quickly I could edit if I could mimic the old Movieola or Steenbeck process.
-Grab a video file, load into the viewer, view the footage, mark an edit point, and move it onto the final sequence.
-Use a 'stretch' gesture to make it slo-mo or trim the end of the edit.
-Zoom in and out on the timeline by spreading my fingers out.
-By tracking the movement of my hand to move a mouse point, 'press' a button by curling the finger and moving it toward the screen.
-Operate a 'flywheel' to rock an edit back and forth.

The 3D nature of the gloves could make it incredibly powerful for 3D animation. 3D animators create a virtual landscape inside a computer. The animator could manoeuvre around in the virtual space by hand gestures.

ILM and other visual effects companies have tracking suits for creating animated characters. Perhaps their technology is similar to the gesture gloves.

Contribute your ideas in the comments below.