Hand tracking and visualization in a virtual reality simulation

Tracking a user's hand for 3D rendering and visualization creates a sense of presence in virtual reality environments. At present, tracking devices built for both research and consumer use are increasingly accessible, with ever improving spatiotemporal accuracy. This work seeks to contribute a new design which offers an ability to track the fingers and palm. The hand tracking method described herein ties absolute tracking of the user's palm with relative tracking of individual fingers. A virtually rendered image of the movements of the user's hand is displayed in near real-time to a virtual environment developed with the X3D ISO standard for representing 3D graphics. The tracking system was verified using experiments designed to confirm the accuracy and usability of the device. Experiment 1 tested the absolute positioning capability by tracking the subject's palm. Experiment 2 tested the relative positioning capability by tracking the subject's fingers. The results of the experiments indicate that the tracking component of the virtual reality system is able to accurately detect subjects' interaction with objects in the virtual environment.