Patent ID: 8452051

Claim:
Tangible computer readable storage device having computer readable software embodied thereon for programming a processor to perform a method for tracking user movement in a motion capture system, the method comprising: tracking a body in a field of view of the motion capture system, including obtaining a 3-D depth image and determining a 3-D skeletal model of the body; for one point in time, identifying a location of a hand of the 3-D skeletal model in the field of view; and for a next point in time: identifying a reference point of the 3-D skeletal model; defining at least one vector from the reference point in the next point in time to the location of the hand in the one point in time; traversing the at least one vector to look for a most probable location of the hand in the next point in time, including scoring candidate locations which are part of the 3-D skeletal model based on their distance along the at least one vector and their distance perpendicularly from the at least one vector; based on the most probable location of the hand, defining a volume in the field of view; searching the 3-D depth image in the volume to determine a location of the hand in the field of view; and providing to an application a control input which represents the hand in the field of view based on the determined location of the hand, or a value derived from the determined location of the hand.