A Finite Element Region approach to shape representation and hand gesture recognition

This paper presents a novel shape representation approach based on Finite Element Region (FER). We assume an image blob can be treated as a mesh model that consists of a finite number of deformable quadrilateral pixel elements. These elements connecting side by side form an approximate physical model of the surface of real object. By employing Finite Element Method (FEM), the model´s natural frequency can be derived, which is one of mechanical properties that only related to geometric shape, as the shape representation. Experimental results validated the proposed FER descriptor possessing good performance on shape representation. It also has translation, rotation invariant properties naturally, and scale and affine normalization can be realized in few steps. Experiments also demonstrated that the FER descriptor is sensitive to shape deformation. It can precisely describe subtle changing processes between different gestures. This property allows us to establish a conceptual graph model of hand gestures changing to improve the performance of ambiguous gesture recognition.