1. A system for detecting hand posture using parts based template matching to detect individual human fingers, comprising: a processor; a reference camera configured to capture sequences of frames of video data, where each frame of video data comprises intensity information for a plurality of pixels; an alternate view camera configured to capture sequences of frames of video data, where each frame of video data comprises intensity information for a plurality of pixels; memory containing: a hand tracking application; and a plurality of edge feature templates that are rotated and scaled versions of a finger template that comprises an edge features template; and wherein the hand tracking application configures the processor to: obtain a reference frame of video data from the reference camera; obtain an alternate view frame of video data from the alternate view camera; detect at least one candidate finger in the reference frame of video data, where each of the at least one candidate finger is a grouping of pixels identified by searching the reference frame of video data for a grouping of pixels that have image gradient orientations that match one of the plurality of edge feature templates; and verify the correct detection of a candidate finger in the reference frame of video data by locating a grouping of pixels in the alternate view frame of video data that correspond to the candidate finger.