Gesture Control for Lecture Halls and Auditoriums

Lecture halls and auditoriums run on projectors and very large LCDs because a room of 100 people needs an image that size, and interactive panels top out well below it. Gesture control makes that big image interactive without replacing it. AirTouch reads the presenter's hands through a standard RGB camera and sends ordinary mouse, keyboard, and touch input to the computer driving the display, so slides, anatomy models, and simulations respond from the lectern, the floor, or the front row.

Why is the lecture hall the hard case?

In a conference room, a presenter can walk to the panel and touch it. In a hall, the screen is on a wall four meters up and the lectern is the only place with a mouse. The result is a lecturer tied to a podium, a clicker that does nothing but advance, and any real interaction, rotating a model or zooming a slide, done by walking back to the laptop.

The replacement pitch, a bigger interactive panel, runs into a wall at around 86 inches in most catalogs, far too small for the back row. We covered the capital side of this in make a projector a smart board without replacing it and smart board cost: the panel is the cheap part.

How does gesture control work at room scale?

A camera is mounted facing the presenting area, on the lectern, the front row, or the display wall. AirTouch runs on the presentation computer. The presenter raises an open palm to take the cursor, pinches to click, and uses mapped gestures for next slide, previous slide, laser pointer, or zoom. Any application responds: slides, a 3D anatomy viewer, a browser, a simulation.

AutoZoom is what makes this work at distance. It locks onto the presenter's raised hand and adjusts the working area so the same gestures behave the same way whether they are two meters from the camera or much further back. Sensor range is limited by the camera, not the software, and with a suitable camera it works at 20 feet and beyond. The practical range depends on the camera, the lighting, and the room, so it is worth a test in the actual hall. See the advanced settings guide.

What does this change for teaching?

• The lecturer leaves the podium. Walk the front of the room and keep control of the screen.

• Models get rotated, not described. Anatomy, molecules, engineering assemblies, and maps are turned in front of the class.

• Students can drive. Hand a student the cursor by having them raise a hand from the front row.

• Medical education. Imaging review in a teaching hospital auditorium works the way it does in a reading room, at auditorium scale. See gesture control for medical environments.

What does the AV team need to know?

The projector, the switcher, and the screen stay as they are. AirTouch installs on the presentation PC, Windows or Linux, and a camera is installed and positioned for the room. The camera needs 20 frames per second or more and a clear view of where presenters stand, with the presenter lit rather than backlit by the screen. Hall lighting that dims for projection is the usual test case. Some rooms may call for a specialized camera. Through our partnership with Orbbec, AirTouch also takes advantage of 3D depth sensing and IR cameras when a deployment calls for them. See the Orbbec page. Patented intent detection keeps a lecturer's ordinary hand movement while speaking from firing a click in most setups.

Where to start

Pick the hall with the most frustrated faculty and contact us with the room layout. We will propose camera placement and a gesture map for the software they teach with. To feel the interaction first, start a free trial on the presentation laptop with its own webcam.

Related: best smart board for a conference room, AirTouch for PowerPoint, gesture control for the office, and gesture control and hand tracking software.