1. In a computing environment, a method performed at least in part on at least one processor, the method comprising: detecting a hand by: identifying a wrist area as a thinnest part of an arm portion; and separating the arm portion at the identified wrist area; segmenting depth data to isolate the hand represented in a plurality of frames that include hand movement; rotating the hand such that a palm of the hand has a normalized and oriented position relative to an image plane; extracting feature values corresponding to the rotated hand; and recognizing the hand movement as a hand gesture based upon the feature values.