Virtual Mouse - Hand Tracking Controller

Control your mouse cursor using your index finger and click by pinching!

Features

• Cursor Control: Move your index finger to control the mouse cursor
• Click Detection: Pinch your thumb and index finger together to click
• Smooth Movement: Built-in smoothing to reduce jittery cursor movement
• Visual Feedback: See your hand skeleton and finger tracking in real-time

Installation

1. Install Python dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

2. For Linux users, you may need additional permissions for mouse control:

   # Install xdotool
   sudo apt-get install xdotool

Usage

Run the program:

python virtual_mouse.py

Controls:

• Move cursor: Move your index finger around
• Click: Pinch your thumb and index finger together
• Quit: Press 'q' on the keyboard

How It Works

1. Camera Capture: Uses OpenCV to capture video from your webcam
2. Hand Detection: MediaPipe detects your hand and tracks 21 landmarks
3. Finger Tracking: Monitors the index finger tip position (landmark #8)
4. Coordinate Mapping: Converts camera coordinates to screen coordinates
5. Smoothing: Applies exponential smoothing to reduce jitter
6. Gesture Recognition: Detects pinch gesture (thumb-index distance < threshold)
7. Mouse Control: PyAutoGUI moves the cursor and triggers clicks

Customization

You can adjust these parameters in the code:

• smoothing (line 18): Higher = smoother but more lag (default: 7)
• frame_reduction (line 21): Increases control area (default: 100)
• min_detection_confidence (line 43): Hand detection sensitivity (default: 0.7)
• Pinch threshold in is_pinching() (line 30): Distance for click (default: 0.05)

Tips for Best Results

1. Lighting: Good lighting helps with hand detection
2. Background: Plain backgrounds work better than cluttered ones
3. Distance: Keep your hand 1-2 feet from the camera
4. Calibration: Adjust frame_reduction if the cursor doesn't reach screen edges
5. Smoothing: Increase smoothing value if cursor is too jittery

Troubleshooting

Cursor is jittery:

• Increase the smoothing value (try 10-15)

Cursor doesn't reach screen edges:

• Decrease frame_reduction value or adjust the interp ranges

Hand not detected:

• Improve lighting
• Lower min_detection_confidence to 0.5
• Make sure your hand is clearly visible

Clicks not registering:

• Increase the pinch threshold (try 0.07 instead of 0.05)
• Make a more deliberate pinching motion

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• Webcam
• The libraries in requirements.txt

Future Enhancements

Ideas to extend this project:

• Right-click with different gestures
• Scroll by swiping
• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Multi-finger gestures
• Calibration mode for different screen sizes
• Virtual keyboard integration

virtual-mouse