Adaptive Hand Color Extraction Using Wave Motion Detection

Correct hand segmentation in image sequences is the most important aspect of hand-gesture interfaces. Existing hand-segmentation methods may be classified into two general approaches. One uses predefined skin color and the other uses a learning process. The skin color-learning method gives good results but its excessive processing time precludes its use in real time. In the predefined color approach, automatically modifying the predefined color when the environment changes would increase convenience and efficiency. Identifying a change in the environment usually requires user intervention. We propose a method by which the user can easily modify the predefined skin color any time in any environment simply by waving his/her hand in front of the camera. The hand interface system detects the waving hand region and efficiently extracts the hand color for use in hand-gesture interfaces.