projects . Mouseless


Mouseless - an invisible mouse


'Mouseless' is an invisible computer mouse that provides the familiarity of interaction of a physical mouse without actually needing a real hardware mouse. Despite the advances in computing hardware technologies, the two-button computer mouse has remained the predominant means to interact with a computer. The Mouseless invention removes the requirement of having a physical mouse altogether but still provides the intuitive interaction of a physical mouse that users are familiar with. Mouseless consists of an Infrared (IR) laser beam and an Infrared camera. Both IR laser and IR camera are embedded in the computer. The laser beam module is modified with a line cap and placed such that it creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on. The user cups their hand, as if a physical mouse was present underneath, and the laser beam lights up the hand which is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs using computer vision. The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks.

'Mouseless' website