64 ASL Hand Shapes Data Glove Recordings

Human-to-human communication via the computer is mainly done using a keyboard or microphone. In the field of Virtual Reality (VR), where the most immersive experience possible is desired, the use of a keyboard contradicts this goal, while the use of a microphone is not always desirable (e.g. silent commands during task force training) or simply not possible (e.g. if the user has a hearing loss). Data gloves help to increase immersion within the VR as they correspond to our natural interaction. At the same time, they offer the possibility to accurately capture hand shapes, such as those used in non-verbal communication (e.g. thumbs up, okay gesture, ...) and in sign language. In this paper, we present a hand shape recognition system using Manus Prime X data gloves, including data acquisition, data preprocessing, and data classification to enable nonverbal communication within VR. We investigate the impact on accuracy and classification time of using an Outlier Detection and a Feature Selection approach in our data preprocessing. To obtain a more generalized approach, we also studied the impact of artificial Data Augmentation, i.e., we create new artificial data from the recorded and filtered data to augment the training dataset. With our approach, 56 different hand shapes could be distinguished with an accuracy of up to 93.28%. With a reduced number of 27 hand shapes, an accuracy of up to 95.55% could be achieved. Voting Meta-Classifier (VL2) has proven to be the most accurate, albeit slowest, classifier. A good alternative is Random Forest (RF), which was even able to achieve better accuracy values in a few cases and was generally somewhat faster. Outlier Detection has proven to be a effective approach, especially in improving classification time. Overall, we have shown that our hand shape recognition system using data gloves is suitable for communication within VR.

64 different hand shapes were recorded from 20 participants, each with 3 repetitions. The files are structured as follows:

• 1st line Name of the hand shape
• 2nd line Left or right hand
• 3rd line empty
• 4th-23rd line Features Repetition 1
• 24th line empty
• 25th - 44th line Features repetition 2
• 45th line blank
• 46th - 65th line Features repetition 3

The features are ordered as follows:

1. Thumb spread
2. Index Finger spread
3. Middle Finger spread
4. Ring Finger spread
5. Pinky spread
6. Thumb stretch CMC
7. Thumb stretch MCP
8. Thumb stretch IP
9. Index Finger stretch MCP
10. Index Finger stretch PIP
11. Index Finger stretch DIP
12. Middle Finger stretch MCP
13. Middle Finger stretch PIP
14. Middle Finger stretch DIP
15. Ring Finger stretch MCP
16. Ring Finger stretch PIP
17. Ring Finger stretch DIP
18. Pinky stretch MCP
19. Pinky stretch PIP
20. Pinky stretch DIP