User Study of Hand Gestures for Gesture Based 3D CAD Modeling

Gestures are an important medium of human communication and have been studied throughout the centuries from different viewpoints and in different domains ranging from arts, linguistics, philosophy and engineering. Recent developments in gestures based human-computer interaction (HCI) studies are noteworthy. However, commercial application of hand gestures in computer aided sketching and modeling is rarely found. The present study focuses on identifying various aspects of hand gestures that can be used as an input to a gesture based CAD software for sketching and 3D modeling tasks. First, we experimentally observed and studied hand gestures performed by users to convey CAD sketch and 3D modeling commands. Next, we performed literature study to compile a repository of gestures used by researchers in conveying various commands for gesture based human computer interaction. With the knowledge gleaned from these two steps a simplified yet representative taxonomy was created to classify hand gestures which can be used for drawing tasks in CAD. During the course of these studies we identified various attributes/requirements of a gesture based CAD software, consideration of which will help in enhancing the CAD designer experience.