# DeltaDorsal: Enhancing Hand Pose Estimation with Dorsal Features in Egocentric Views

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15516 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.15516/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 34 of its 76 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [RAFT: Recurrent All-Pairs Field Transforms for Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12039/) (2020)
- [Ego4D: Around the World in 3,000 Hours of Egocentric Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07058/) (2021)
- [OpenPose: Realtime Multi-Person 2D Pose Estimation using Part Affinity Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08008/) (2018)
- [ARCTIC: A Dataset for Dexterous Bimanual Hand-Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13662/) (2022)
- [Reconstructing Hands in 3D with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05251/) (2023)
- [H2O: Two Hands Manipulating Objects for First Person Interaction Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11181/) (2021)
- [Learning to Estimate 3D Hand Pose from Single RGB Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.01389/) (2017)
- [Hand Keypoint Detection in Single Images using Multiview Bootstrapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.07809/) (2017)
- [First-Person Hand Action Benchmark with RGB-D Videos and 3D Hand Pose Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.02463/) (2017)
- [Embodied Hands: Modeling and Capturing Hands and Bodies Together](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.02610/) (2022)
- [3D Hand Shape and Pose Estimation from a Single RGB Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00812/) (2019)
- [MediaPipe Hands: On-device Real-time Hand Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10214/) (2020)
- [FlexiViT: One Model for All Patch Sizes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08013/) (2022)
- [HandOccNet: Occlusion-Robust 3D Hand Mesh Estimation Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14564/) (2022)
- [FrankMocap: Fast Monocular 3D Hand and Body Motion Capture by Regression and Integration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08324/) (2020)
- [Real-time Pose and Shape Reconstruction of Two Interacting Hands With a Single Depth Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08059/) (2021)
- [AssemblyHands: Towards Egocentric Activity Understanding via 3D Hand Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12301/) (2023)
- [Collaborative Learning for Hand and Object Reconstruction with Attention-guided Graph Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13062/) (2022)
- [Benchmarks and Challenges in Pose Estimation for Egocentric Hand Interactions with Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16428/) (2024)
- [HoloLens 2 Research Mode as a Tool for Computer Vision Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.11239/) (2020)
- [3D Hand Pose Estimation in Everyday Egocentric Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06583/) (2023)
- [An Image is Worth More Than 16x16 Patches: Exploring Transformers on Individual Pixels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09415/) (2024)
- [Scaling Laws in Patchification: An Image Is Worth 50,176 Tokens And More](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.03738/) (2025)
- [EgoPressure: A Dataset for Hand Pressure and Pose Estimation in Egocentric Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02224/) (2024)
- [The Invisible EgoHand: 3D Hand Forecasting through EgoBody Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08654/) (2025)
- [CHORD: Category-level Hand-held Object Reconstruction via Shape Deformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10574/) (2023)
- [Spectral Graphormer: Spectral Graph-based Transformer for Egocentric Two-Hand Reconstruction using Multi-View Color Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11015/) (2023)
- [MSPE: Multi-Scale Patch Embedding Prompts Vision Transformers to Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18240/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Can Vision-Language Models Analyze Human-Centered Video? Mapping Model Capabilities and Human-AI Collaborative Workflows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27327/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The proliferation of XR devices has made egocentric hand pose estimation a vital task, yet this perspective is inherently challenged by frequent finger occlusions. To address this, we propose a novel approach that leverages the rich information in dorsal hand skin deformation, unlocked by recent advances in dense visual featurizers. We introduce a dual-stream delta encoder that learns pose by contrasting features from a dynamic hand with a baseline relaxed position. Our evaluation demonstrates that, using only cropped dorsal images, our method reduces the Mean Per Joint Angle Error (MPJAE) by 18% in self-occluded scenarios (fingers >= 50% occluded) compared to state-of-the-art techniques that depend on the whole hand's geometry and large model backbones. Consequently, our method not only enhances the reliability of downstream tasks like index finger pinch and tap estimation in occluded scenarios but also unlocks new interaction paradigms, such as detecting isometric force for a surface "click" without visible movement while minimizing model size.