Manipulating Flood Simulator by Hand Gesture Interface

Recently, there are many virtual and augmented reality applications in which enhancing immersion and presence through adopting natural user interface by using a part of human body. In this paper, we try to confirm the feasibility of adopting natural user interface to flood simulation as 3D virtual reality by using hand gesture recognition. 3D virtual environment including concavo-convex topography and function for supplying and flowing water is used. In our virtual environment, viewpoint of virtual reality can be manipulated by translation and rotation using keyboard direction key and mouse dragging, respectively. Supplying water can be triggered by clicking mouse left button. Recognized hand gestures are mapped to the mentioned interactions by keyboard and mouse. Consequently, virtual reality for flood simulation is manipulated by using only hand gesture instead of conventional interface methods. At experimental results, we confirmed that the proposed method could be effectively adopted as a similar level of the conventional interface by repeatedly practice. Also, in case of using the hand gesture recognition, the level of immersion and presence through experiencing the virtual reality were even greater than the case of using the conventional keyboard and mouse.