The technology disclosed relates generally to image analysis and, in particular embodiments, to identifying shapes and capturing motions of objects in three-dimensional space. This is accomplished by calculation of numerous span lengths between opposing sides of a control object wherein each control object can consist of a plurality of span modes, each span mode identified by a frequency distribution of a plurality of sample points. The relevant sample points are derived from the pairing of boundary points on the opposing sides of the control object. For each span mode, span width parameters are calculated from at least part of the distribution of the span lengths, using the span width parameters to initialize at least a portion of a model of the control object, and generating predictive information from the initialized model.
Initializing predictive information for free space gesture control and communication