Hand Gesture Volume Control

A real-time computer vision application that uses hand gesture recognition to control system volume — no keyboard or mouse required.

Demo

Control your Mac's volume by pinching your thumb and index finger together or apart. The further apart your fingers, the higher the volume.

How It Works

1. Webcam captures a live video feed
2. MediaPipe Tasks detects hand landmarks in real time (21 keypoints per hand)
3. The Euclidean distance between the thumb tip (landmark 4) and index finger tip (landmark 8) is calculated
4. That distance is mapped to a volume percentage (0–100%)
5. System volume is updated instantly via osascript (only when the value changes)

Features

• Real-time hand detection and tracking at webcam framerate
• Visual feedback — distance and volume percentage rendered on-screen
• Midpoint overlay showing current gesture reading
• Supports up to 2 hands simultaneously

Tech Stack

Library	Purpose
Python 3	Core language
OpenCV (cv2)	Webcam capture and image rendering
MediaPipe Tasks	Hand landmark detection (HandLandmarker)
osascript	macOS system volume control
math	Euclidean distance calculation

Requirements

• macOS (volume control uses osascript)
• Python 3.x
• Webcam

Installation

git clone https://github.com/Artlenhavis123/Handtracking_Volume_Change.git
cd Handtracking_Volume_Change
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.py

On first run, the MediaPipe hand_landmarker.task model (~8 MB) is downloaded automatically into the project directory.

Usage

• Run the script and allow webcam access
• Hold your hand in front of the camera
• Pinch thumb and index finger together → volume decreases
• Pull them apart → volume increases
• Distance and volume % are shown on screen in real time
• Press q to quit

Volume Mapping

Finger Distance	Volume
< 50px	0% (mute)
50–300px	Scaled linearly
> 300px	100%

Known Limitations

• Currently macOS only — Windows support via pycaw is a planned improvement
• Volume mapping is linear; a smoothing function would reduce abrupt jumps

Future Improvements

• Cross-platform support (Windows via pycaw, Linux via amixer)
• Gesture smoothing to reduce volume flickering
• Additional gesture commands (mute toggle, play/pause)
• Configurable sensitivity settings

Author

Oliver Havis — GitHub