Gregory Baratoff and Dan Searles Gestures are physical positions or movements of a person's fingers, hands, arms or body used to convey information. For example, see the figure below. In a virtual reality system, gestures can be used to navigate, control or otherwise interact with the computer creating the virtual reality.
Gesture recognition is the process by which gestures formed by a user are made known to the system.
In completely immersive VR environments, the keyboard is generally not included, and some other means of control over the environment is needed. The goal is to have a natural means of control, or at least one which is simple to learn. Gestures with the fingers or hands can provide this capability and are usually inexpensive and easy to implement. Gestures can be expressed in several ways. Any physical aspect of a person that the person can control can be the basis for a set of gestures.