The Vision-Pad, a convenient input device

The concept of the Vision-Pad, a new approach for a device supporting the interaction of man and machine is presented. It is based on an image pick-up system, which detects a hand´s or pointing device´s position over a panel. This information is processed by the system to feedback the hand´s position to the user using the computer´s or machine´s standard display device. By this concept no direct view to the panel, no change of view directions, and no distance adaptations of the eyes are needed to obtain a reliable input. These features allow a safe and comfortable input especially in critical environments, such as e.g. cars, as well as help for disabled people. A demonstrator based on a plastic optical fibre is realized, which shows the applicability of the basic concept in various environments even with changing illumination conditions. Moreover, the possibility for a realization using little computational power and minimum hardware expense is pointed out.