A kinect-based gesture recognition approach for the design of an interactive tourism guide application

Abstract

Emerging technologies have revolutionized industrial and economic processes in the present days, tourism is no exception. For the modern tourist, access to readily available information about destinations they visit has become a necessity. To remain competitive cities must provide their visitors with interactive tools, which allow them to gain insight of their surroundings so that they feel confident enough to explore points of interest. This article proposes the design of an interactive tourism visitor guide that recognizes gesture commands to display significant information regarding shopping centers, restaurants, hotels and landmarks in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. To achieve this objective, a Kinect based natural user interface is deployed to allow tourist to control the tourism guide with the movements of their hands to preview images, data, and maps of how to reach touristic locations in the city. Integration with Kinect is handled through the deployment of a C# software based on the Microsoft Kinect Software Development Kit and Windows Presentation Foundation. The interface recognizes two main gestures when browsing the guide: push-to-press and grip-to-pan. Preliminary results demonstrate that the quality of interaction and overall user experience of the application allows for implementations in a real-world setting to reinforce local and international tourism.