Mani-Pull-Action

Abstract

The human hand dexterity provides a natural and rich interface for computer interaction. Technologies for tracking hand and finger motion are now accessible and can be used with a minimum computation power for the manipulation of virtual puppets in real-time. However creating an intuitive hand-based motion con- trol interface presents problems such as, mapping the hand to an object that demands more degrees of freedom or to assign gestures that are difficult to memorize or to execute. We propose an ergonomic hand- mapping model for digital puppetry, based on the human hand anatomy and biomechanics, adapting tradi- tional puppetry methods. A cinematic virtual puppetry application was developed supporting distinct in- teraction styles based on the hand dexterity skills. An experiment using the Leap Motion controller was conducted to evaluate the hand mapping feasibility. The participants considered that the proposed interface provides a good level of directness. Furthermore, a custom interface for smartphones was combined with the application to extend the puppet manipulation and show control operations.