Patent ID: 7874917

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for detecting depth and direction when interfacing with a computer program, comprising: (a) capturing one or more images with at least one depth camera, wherein each depth camera has a capture location in a coordinate space and the image includes a person; (b) identifying a human head of the person in the image and assigning the human head a head location in the coordinate space; (c) identifying an object held by the person in the image and assigning the object an object location in coordinate space; (d) identifying a relative position in coordinate space between the head location and the object location when viewed from the capture location, wherein identifying the relative position includes computing an azimuth angle and an altitude angle between the head location and the object location in relation to the capture location, wherein the relative position includes a dimension of depth with respect to the coordinate space, wherein the dimension of depth is determined from analysis of the one or more images; and (e) displaying the pointing direction of the object on the display screen.