slideshow with gestures interaction using opencv

I'm working on a photo gallery *projected on a wall*, in which the users should interact with gestures. The users will be standing in front of the wall projection. The user should be able to select one photo, to go back to the main gallery and to do other (unspecified) gestures.

I have programming skills in c,c++ and some knowledge in opengl. I have no experience with opencv but I think I can use it to recognize the user gestures.

The raw idea is to place a webcam in front of the user (up or down the wall rectangle) and process the video stream with opencv.

This may not be the best solution at all... so a lot of questions arises:

Any reference to helpful document开发者_如何转开发ation? Should I use a controlled lights ambient? In your experience where is the best camera position? Might it be better to back project the wall (I mean that the wall will not be a real wall ;-) )

Any different (better) solution? are there any devices to visually intercept the user gestures (like xbox360 for example)?

Thanks a lot! Massimo

I don't have much experience on human detection with OpenCV, but with any tool, this is a difficult task. You didn't even specified which parts of the human body you're planned to use... Are gestures use the full body, only arms and hands, etc. ?

OpenCV has some predefined files to detect full human body, face, mouth, etc. (look for dedicated .xml file into OpenCV source code), you may want to try them. For documentation, the official OpenCV documentation is a must see: http://opencv.willowgarage.com/documentation/cpp/index.html but of course, it is very general.

Controlling the ambient light may be useful, but it depends on the methods you'll use. First, find the suited methods, and make your choice depending on your capacity to control the light. Again, the best position of the camera will depend on the methods and surely on which parts of the human body you planned to use. Finally, keep in mind that OpenCV is not particularly fast do you may need to use some OpenGL routines to make things faster.

If you're prepared not to use only webcams, you may want to have a look at the Kinect SDKs. The official is only supposed to be released next spring, but you can find stuff for Linux boxes already.

have fun!