Hand gesture recognition is a natural and intuitive way to interact with the computer, since interactions with the computer can be increased through multidimensional use of hand gestures as compare to other input methods. The purpose of this paper is to explore three different techniques for HGR (hand gesture recognition) using finger tips detection. A new approach called 'Curvature of Perimeter' is presented with its application as a virtual mouse. The system presented, uses only a webcam and algorithms which are developed using computer vision, image and the video processing toolboxes of Matlab. © 2014 IEEE.