Tuesday, January 3, 2012

HMI - movement that controls your computer?

Not your mother's HMI
Wow. Human machine interface (HMI) is what we use to interact with our machines, such as computers or industrial machinery, or video games. Normally, we're talking a keyboard, a mouse, maybe a pen devise if you're a super geek like me. But imagine your movements controlling the computer. Can you imagine for a moment?

I know what's going through that pretty little head of yours. Your thinking about those science fiction movies where the guy has his whole body wired up and electrodes all over his body. Or at least the weird silvery gloves with electrodes all over them. But, no. I'm talking about a real motion HMI. They call it gesture based HMI and it's different than the Wii, where you have a remote in your hand. This is just your hand (or whatever it's programmed for).

This is some futuristic cool super geeky stuff I'm talking about. But, it's not science fiction... it's real, it's here, and it's not even that expensive. I found a real scientist from Texas A&M University. Dugan Um, the researcher and developer of gesture based HMI units that basically use really sophisticated 3D cameras to communicate movement to computers. Check it out here.

The name of the company is Dinast and they manufacture and sell HMI systems that include the software. I told you I was going to write about stuff that I obsess about, and this is going to be one of them.

1 comment:

  1. really cool. amazing how all the science fiction of the past is coming true. and so quickly. almost scary. And it's not even expensive. Like buying a tablet and pen for a computer.

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