Daniël Van Nieuwenhove, CTO, SoftKinetic discusses gesture recognition technology and key challenges
09 February 2012
Q: Please briefly describe your background in digital imaging.
A: It all started in 2002 for me. I began my PhD at a Brussels University, the VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) under supervision of Professor Maarten Kuijk on the subject of CMOS circuits and sensors for 3D Time-of-flight cameras. In the early days with a few ideas at hand, we decided to immediately shoot for full 3D image sensor, which eventually never worked. We learned the hard way that it takes a more carefully planned road, going from device physics to single sensor designs, to pixel designs and eventually image sensor designs. I contributed primarily in the device physics and the analog design focused on the single pixels, and was lucky to be joined by some talented researchers down the road, such as Ward Van der Tempel and Riemer GrootjansWe eventually came-up with the first working Time-of-flight arrays and prototype cameras and established the foundations of today's DepthSense™ technology. After 7 years of fundamental research, we made the jump to start Optrima, which merged in early 2011 with SoftKinetic, an already established player in 3D Gesture Recognition Middleware (iisu™) and Interactive Application Development (SoftKinetic Studios).
Q: To what extent are the applications currently limited to gaming? What else is SoftKinetic used for?
A: The use of gesture recognition is not limited to gaming, but the first market to massively embrace the technology was indeed gaming, with the global success of the Kinect. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg and the technology is really disruptive beyond gaming because it allows brand new user engagement and experiences. We already have clients successfully using SoftKinetic technologies in fitness and rehabilitation, interactive marketing and digital signage and much more. The use of 3D imaging and gesture recognition will propagate in the TV, the PC then the tablet and smartphone markets. As the technology matures further, you will see other applications in toys, monitoring, robotics, home automation, biometrics, security just to name a few...
Q: Will we eventually see this replace all other forms of user interfacing?
A: It will definitely not replace all forms of user interfacing. However, we are convinced that the technology will disrupt some established user interfaces, like the television for example. With the connected TVs, there is so much more content available (internet browsing, gaming, streaming movie services etc.) that the current remote control is not working anymore. We collaborate with set top box and television OEM to solve this problem, and gesture recognition is a very compelling solution. We also see user interactions emerging, where previously there were none: digital signage is a good example of such a market.
Q: From a technical standpoint, what are your main challenges in developing this technology further?
A: The technology has a huge potential, but is still a bit young and therefore contains plenty of challenges. At SoftKinetic we have the different aspects of the end-to-end solution from sensor to camera production to middleware and application development. One of our main advantages but also challenges, is optimizing and integrating this whole chain optimally in the different platforms such as the TV and PC. As long as we remain focused we really foresee a bright future for the company because the technology has so much potential for growth.
Q: Finally, we are pleased to have you on board for the conference this year, what are you hoping to gain from the event?
A: The pleasure is mine. I am really looking forward to learn a lot from listening to the other experts presenting results and points of views. I am also excited to meet and greet other people in the industry.
Daniël Van Nieuwenhove will be presenting at Image Sensors 2012 on "Trends in gesture recognition technology".