Professional's Domain

A group of students at Northeastern University Engineering recently built a new 3D PC interface, which enables the user to control computers only by hand gestures.

The device make use of the theory of electrostatics to track the position of a user’s hand in three dimensions. As a result, the system is low-cost and does not require the users to wear additional sensors or other accessories to keep their hands tracked.

Every person carries a certain amount of static electricity, and the new device is able to lock on the the static electricity on the user’s hand by a set of copper plates and track the 3D coordinates of the hand movements. The hand movements are then translated into PC controlling commands that are able to operate the computer.

Unlike the normal mouse, the new device is able to understand movements in 3D space. That is to say, the controlling is not limited in a horizontal plane but the user is able to give operations by moving his hand up and down.

The new device just won the 2009 Senior Capstone projects at the College of Engineering Northeastern University.

A video demonstration of the device shows some of its incredible abilities, including drawing simple lines, operating 3DS Max in a 3D way, manipulating a DJ system by a virtual keyboard…