evaluation

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:

Thumb spread
Index Finger spread
Middle Finger spread
Ring Finger spread
Pinky spread
Thumb stretch CMC
Thumb stretch MCP
Thumb stretch IP
Index Finger stretch MCP
Index Finger stretch PIP
Index Finger stretch DIP
Middle Finger stretch MCP
Middle Finger stretch PIP
Middle Finger stretch DIP
Ring Finger stretch MCP
Ring Finger stretch PIP
Ring Finger stretch DIP
Pinky stretch MCP
Pinky stretch PIP
Pinky stretch DIP