This week I've been working on hand tracking. I've read some important paper about the subject and I've installed softwares that deal with it. Both of them are reported at http://code.google.com/p/ehci/wiki/HandTracking . Besides that I've made some small videos (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1WNb0g0f9Q and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmh-mZFxWns) showing the behaviour of "Flock of Features" and Viola-Jones Haar Cascades. Both of them yield very good results, each one with a different goal.
While using the Viola-Jones Cascades, I've applied
Juan P. Wachs xml training file. This file's been trained with more than 1000 images so that the A gesture (a closed hand pointing upwards) could be effectively recognized. Thanks to Juan for making the file available. Besides that I'd also like to thank
Dr. Vincent Lepetit for great directions to follow.
I'm now studying Viola-Jones haartraining in more detail to see if the same approach for generating the closed hand feature can be used for detecting open hands, as well as detection in other directions. I'm also willing to test some 3d model tracking.
Some other minor updates are my faculty's and NUI Group's logos appearing in the front page of the
project.
When I get hand detection finished, at least for two closed hands, zooming and rotating features will be able to be implemented, which are the goals of the first month.
Well, it's nice to have an opportunity to show ITA's progress with STI Cell research. In June, 23rd, 2008 we had the pleasure to receive the IBMer Ph. D. Robert M. Szabo, from Cell Ecosystem Development Systems and Mr. Flavio Carazato, from University Relations of IBM Brazil. 
at GaTech. A full report of the visit is available in our wiki at http://code.google.com/p/ps3hacking/wiki/2008BobReport. Thanks to Robert Szabo, Flavio Carazato, and all researchers and professors from ITA.
