There was a time not too long ago when touch screens were considered the future of retail displays. During and after the coronavirus pandemic, many retailers will instead pivot to touchless displays in order to reduce the spread of pathogens and adapt to consumer preferences. The key to touchless technology is gesture recognition, a burgeoning market projected to reach USD $32.3 billion in 2025 from USD $9.8 billion in 2020. 

Gesture Recognition: How It Works

Gesture recognition is the mathematical representation of human gestures via computing devices. It requires a sophisticated process to capture, interpret, and respond to human input. An article featured in the online publication Interesting Engineering, explains a pioneering example of this technology:

“Since 2016, the BMW 7 Series of cars has had gesture recognition that allows drivers to turn up or turn down the volume, accept or reject a phone call, and change the angle of the multicamera view. There's even a customizable two-finger gesture that you can program to whatever you want – from ‘navigate home’ to ‘let's get a pizza.’”



The Science Behind the Sequence

In gesture recognition, a camera captures image data and feeds the data into a sensing device. The sensing device is connected to a computer, where specially designed software identifies meaningful gestures from a predetermined gesture library.

The software then correlates each real-time gesture to one in the library. Once the gesture has been interpreted, the computer executes the command correlated to that specific gesture.



Gesture Recognition in Stores

In retail, gesture recognition presents the opportunity to replace interactive touch screens with next generation displays that read motions such as pressing a button or swiping a card. All of the surfaces to which we’re accustomed can be converted from tactile to virtual for a combination of convenience and cleanliness. 

To begin mapping your move from touch to touchless displays, contact Duggal Visual Solutions today.

caption id="attachment_51677" align="aligncenter" width="620" The Nestlé Market store in Barcelona, Spain – in conjunction with CaixaBank and the Payment Innovation Hub, a multi-sector technology alliance – is claiming to be the first to allow shoppers to pay using facial recognition technology./caption