Liang, Rung-HueiOuhyoung, Ming2014-10-212014-10-2119951467-8659https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.1995.cgf143-0067.xMany ways of communications are used between human and computer, while using gesture is considered to be one of the most natural way in a virtual reality system. Because of its intuitiveness and its capability of helping the hearing impaired or speaking impaired, we develop a gesture recognition system. Considering the world-wide use of ASL (American Sign Language), this system focuses on the recognition of a continuous flow of alphabets in ASL to spell a word followed by the speech synthesis, and adopts a simple and efficient windowed template matching recognition strategy to achieve the goal of a real-time and continuous recognition. In addition to the abduction and the flex information in a gesture, we introduce a concept of contact-point into our system to solve the intrinsic ambiguities of some gestures in ASL. Five tact switches, served as contact-points and sensed by an analogue to digital board, are sewn on a glove cover to enhance the functions of a traditional data glove.10.1111/j.1467-8659.1995.cgf143-0067.x67-76