Gesture Controlled Desktop Using Webcam

Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
In the "real" world, a gesture is a motion of the limbs or an act made to express a thought or as a symbol of intent. You gesture to your waiter to come over and see the fly in your soup, or wave an oncoming car past your stopped car. You make hand gestures to express disgust and anger of others, or to signal approval and disapproval (thumbs up and thumbs down). These gestures are often shortcuts or silent, non-verbal alternatives for expression. In other cases, especially when we want a richer vocabulary, we may use spoken or written language to express ourselves more explicitly. These gestures and their meaning are usually learned. While they may have a relationship to the idea being expressed (waving a car around your stopped car), they often have more obscure symbolism and take longer to learn (handshaking, giving a "high-five). In the realm of computing, we have other gestures. When using a mouse, we indicate position on the computer screen by sliding our hands over the desk in a relative (not absolute-positioned) motion. We use finger gestures, including some we call "pushing buttons", that are really more akin to the dexterity of playing a note on the clarinet than on a piano or pushing a button to choose something from a vending machine. The same gesture can have different meanings when we press a second button on the mouse or use our other hand to hold down a modifier key on the keyboard. Once you learn a gesture and its meaning, it becomes a "natural" way of expression. In your mind, you start thinking of waving a car around yours or stopping one approaching a crosswalk by using an upraised hand as directly "controlling" something else. You start to think of the gesture like a lever that is mechanically effecting what you want, and may think that is the only gesture that could have that meaning, just as in the physical world only that particular lever could actually control the thing to which it was