Computer reads hand movements

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No-Contact Technology

Microsoft System Reads
Hand Movements,
Doesn't Require Touch

By ROGER CHENG
August 31, 2006; Page B3

Microsoft Corp. researcher Andy Wilson is hands-off when it comes to technology.

Mr. Wilson is the designer of TouchLight, a system that enables people to rotate or expand computer images with the wave of their hands, similar to technology depicted in the science-fiction movie "Minority Report." In the 2002 film, Tom Cruise's hand motions manipulate holographic-like images to put together data and track down would-be killers.

In the real world, the 35-year-old Mr. Wilson has worked on the TouchLight technology for five years, part of Microsoft's research into unusual human-computer interfaces. Despite the effort, including a more basic prototype Mr. Wilson developed in late 2002, no product using the technology has gone to market.

That could be about to change. Eon Reality Inc., a closely held Irvine, Calif., company that makes three-dimensional computer models of products such as Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner, recently licensed TouchLight from Microsoft. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Eon Reality initially plans to push TouchLight as a new form of interactive advertising and marketing tool. "It's a way to interact with 2-D and 3-D data with your bare hands," said Dan Lejerskar, who manages the company's business development and is working with Microsoft on the applications of TouchLight. "We're trying to find a new way to define things."

Eon plans to wed its models with TouchLight, enabling the viewer to spin or zoom them through the movement of the hand. "If you want to grab it, you grab it," Mr. Lejerskar said. "If you want to rotate it, you just turn it around."

TouchLight works by positioning three cameras behind a large semitransparent screen. Mr. Wilson compares the left and right cameras, which are infrared and pick up the depth and height of the hand movements, to human eyes.

The middle camera, meanwhile, captures anything facing the screen, which can be a document or the user's face. An image, which can be manipulated by the person facing it, is displayed on the semitransparent display, giving off the illusion that it is floating in space.

In addition to Eon Reality's own applications, Mr. Lejerskar is marketing TouchLight systems, which cost $50,000 to $65,000 for a 40-inch to 60-inch display, camera and Eon Reality software, to others. He said there is a large interest in the technology, but so far it has only one taker: the United Kingdom's Technium CAST, which is a program affiliated with the University of Wales Bangor designed to help foster young technology businesses.

"I actually think it is superb," said Karen Padmore, director of visualization applications at CAST, who noted that during a recent computer-graphics trade show, TouchLight was a real show-stopper. "It captured people's attention immediately. From that perspective, it's very powerful and very intuitive."

Ms. Padmore said she plans to use the system as a training application and a way to develop visualization and communication programs. She added that she can envision additional uses.

In a medical setting, where things need to be kept sterile, for example, surgeons might flip through medical instructions or images without having to touch anything, she said. Likewise, auto mechanics with oil-stained hands can wave through virtual car diagrams without having to soil them.

TouchLight can capture the image of the person using the system, making it an ideal video-conferencing tool. Because the camera is directly behind the display, it is as if the person is talking face-to-face with someone else using a similar setup elsewhere.

The display can also superimpose a common image to allow for both sides to simultaneously work on the same design. Eon Reality said that option is under development and that eventually, multiple users could be incorporated.

Mr. Lejerskar said it is too early to set expectations for TouchLight. Eon Reality, which employs roughly 40 people, wouldn't provide financial details about itself, only saying it was profitable.

Despite the obvious comparison, Mr. Wilson said "Minority Report" didn't have any influence on the development of TouchLight. He did note that a classmate from his Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate program served as a design consultant on the film.

"We all kind of grew up with this kind of mind-set of natural interfaces," Mr. Wilson said.