Hands: steering, presence and the journey

A stage with a camera can be used with the hands: under Venue → Stages, edit the stage and turn on Hands under Visitors can use this screen. This page explains the choices there. To make it comfortable where the screen hangs, calibrate the screen; to try it without a camera, use the simulator.

Choose it under A hand steers by:

• Moving (the default) — the palm moves the cursor, like a trackpad.
• Tilting — the wrist points, like a laser pointer; the arm can rest.
• Both — moving for big jumps, tilting to aim.

The aim is held while the fingers close, so a pinch never knocks the cursor off its target. With Tilting or Both, calibration adds a step: tilt only your wrist and point to the four corners. Not sure which suits the screen? Press T in the camera view (H) or use Steering in the operator strip to try each one; that try-out is never saved.

By default a visitor chooses by pinching thumb and index finger. A pinch counts only as a movement — open, then close, with the palm towards the screen — so a relaxed hand that rests with its fingers together never chooses anything by accident. You can switch to choosing by holding still (dwell), or allow both.

When a hand opens a session, a small coach chip says Point, then pinch to choose for about 2.5 seconds, in the screen's current language. It goes at the first deliberate move or pinch, sits in a band with the fewest things to choose, and returns only after the hand has been idle for a while.

Someone counts as there when the camera sees a face close enough or a raised hand (the default), only a face, or only a hand. A face counts from the distance calibration measured, so people passing at the back of the room do not count. Someone counts after half a second and is gone three seconds after the last face; a face lost for a moment is forgiven.

Nothing is identified, stored or sent: the camera picture is analysed on the screen and only "someone is there" is used.

A screen used with the hands moves through one smooth choreography — no cuts, flashes or jumps:

• Nobody there — the loop plays clean.
• Someone steps up — a soft glow rises from the bottom edge; with the gesture guide on, the loop softly blurs and dims behind it and the guide comes up into place. If a stage rule switches to another story (for example someone is there → Home), the new story cross-fades in once it is ready.
• A hand goes up — the guide dissolves, the blur clears, the cursor grows in and the coach chip shows.
• Swipe and pinch — the program holds while the visitor uses it; a swipe plays the shot's own transition, a pinch zooms the chosen item open.
• The session ends — opened views dissolve and the loop cross-fades back to where it would be now.
• They walk away — after the leave delay, everything settles back into the loop.

Presence that flickers in and out never makes the screen stutter. Screens set to reduced motion keep the fades and drop the rest.

Turn on Show visitors how — a gesture guide over the screen (with Hands on) and the stage draws an animated guide — raise, point, pinch, swipe — over its program, with nothing to design. Show it while someone is there (the default) or whenever nobody uses the screen. It never shows during a session or while a hand steers, and not again in the same visit once someone has used the screen. Style, colours, title and captions: see Gesture guide.