Gabor Meszaros's profile - activity

I have the following hobby project and I do not know what kind of cheap hardware is sufficient to build a usable solution.

We have a panel which contains buttons, switches and different kind of controls (like a cockpit of an airplane or a dashboard of a car). A user sits in a chair (again, like an airplane or car) in the front of that dashboard and make modifications in the controls state (turn it on or off). The controls can switch their states by their own too.

I would like to detects the state switch on the panels. I have some leap motion device, but their accuracy is not sufficient, especially when the hands reach the panel surface. I thought that stereo vision (for now, with cheap cameras) could be helpful for tracking hands and/or panel state.

The panels are fixed, so the cameras can be fixed too. The goal is not an industry solid solution but a case study that can work in an ideal environment.

Could you please share your opinion connecting to this task and recommend me cameras those are appropriate for this task? The price should be about the value of a better webcam (I can buy 2-3-4 of them). If the webcams are not for this task, then the cheapest camera that I can use for object recognition.

Thank you very much for the help!