title: Determine skeleton joints with a webcam (not Kinect)
body: <p>I'm trying to determine <strong>skeleton joints</strong> (or at the very least to be able to track a single palm) using a <strong>regular webcam</strong>. I've looked all over the web and can't seem to find a way to do so.</p>
  
  <p>Every example I've found is using Kinect. I want to use a single webcam.</p>
  
  <p>There's no need for me to calculate the depth of the joints - I just need to be able to recognize their X, Y position in the frame. Which is why I'm using a webcam, not a Kinect.</p>
  
  <p>So far I've looked at:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>OpenCV (the "skeleton" functionality in it is a process of simplifying graphical models, but it's not a detection and/or skeletonization of a human body).</li>
  <li>OpenNI (with NiTE) - the only way to get the joints is to use the Kinect device, so this doesn't work with a webcam.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I'm looking for a C/C++ library (but at this point would look at any other language), preferably open source (but, again, will consider any license) that can do the following:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Given an image (a frame from a webcam) calculate the X, Y positions of the visible joints</li>
  <li>[Optional] Given a video capture stream call back into my code with events for joints' positions</li>
  <li>Doesn't have to be super accurate, but would prefer it to be very fast (sub-0.1 sec processing time per frame)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Would really appreciate it if someone can help me out with this. I've been stuck on this for a few days now with no clear path to proceed.</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>2 years later a solution was found: <a href="http://dlib.net/imaging.html#shape_predictor" rel="noreferrer">http://dlib.net/imaging.html#shape_predictor</a></p>