TOWARDS AN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE INTERFACE

In this paper, we present two major parts of an interface for American Sign Language (ASL) to computer applications currently under work; a hand tracker and an ASL-parser. The hand tracker extracts information about handshape, position and motion from image sequences. As an aid i n this process, the signer wears a pair of gloves with colour-coded ma rkers on joints and finger tips. We also present a computational model of American Sign Language. This model is realized in an ASL-parser wh ich consists of a DCG-grammar and a non-lexical component that records non-manual and spatial information over an ASL-discourse.