Robust finger contact detection with majority quadrant search for interactive tabletop displays

This paper proposes a novel algorithm for robust finger blob detection in a multi-touch tabletop display where an array of multiple cameras is placed behind the display screen. The proposed algorithm reliably separates true finger touch blobs from false blobs introduced by palms and hovering hands in the presence of non-uniform illumination. The algorithm is based on majority quadrant search (MQS) which is designed to find a hand direction which leads to the removal of false blobs. Experimental results show that the proposed method reliably extract true finger touch blobs by rejecting the false blobs from a real interactive tabletop display with a multi-camera set-up.