Coded gestures are physical movements to which precise meanings have b
een attached. Their use with an electronic pointing device potentially
increases the power of the pointer by allowing several distinct contr
ol functions to be incorporated. The formation of a coded gesture is i
nvariably subject to distortions which make its automatic recognition
difficult. After particular consideration of three techniques, a dynam
ic programming algorithm was developed and was used in the design of a
real-time gesture recognizer that allows mouse-driven software to be
operated purely by means of an electronic pointer. The decision was ta
ken to implement the gesture recognizer using a widely available, obso
lescent microcomputer in order to keep down costs. Despite the inevita
ble technical compromises in this approach, results of preliminary tri
als using 10 normal subjects show an average gesture recognition rate
of 98.3% and a gesture confusion rate of only 0.4%.