Finger Recognition as Interaction Media in Augmented Reality for Historical Buildings in Matsum and Kesawan Regions of Medan City

Cultural heritage refers to the objects or symbolic attributes which resembles the identity of a society inherited from the previous generations, and will be preserved for the future generations. Despite of the importance of the cultural heritage, the interest of modern society for historic building has been decreased, as the cultural heritage is not considered as the main priority of development by the local government. This condition increases the necessity to restore the interest of modern society for historic building by implementing augmented reality. In this research, the finger recognition is utilized as the media of interaction between the 3-D objects and User. The system will identify the structure of human hand and calculate the number of fingers detected from the image obtained from web camera, by using convex hull and convexity defects. The research shows that the distance required to obtain the best performance is 30 to 50 cm with adequate light condition, while the distance required to perform marker detection in augmented reality is between 2.5 to 5 m, with the camera angle of 40°.