TDraw: a computer-based tactile drawing tool for blind people
Assets '96 Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Assistive technologies
Proceedings of HCI International (the 8th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction) on Human-Computer Interaction: Ergonomics and User Interfaces-Volume I - Volume I
IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
Automating tactile graphics translation
Proceedings of the 7th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
A Robust Algorithm for Text Detection in Color Images
ICDAR '05 Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition
Automated tactile graphics translation: in the field
Proceedings of the 9th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
Journal on Image and Video Processing
Tactile Graphics Revised: The Novel BrailleDis 9000 Pin-Matrix Device with Multitouch Input
ICCHP '08 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs
Instant tactile-audio map: enabling access to digital maps for people with visual impairment
Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
On presenting audio-tactile maps to visually impaired users for getting directions
CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Audio-haptic browser for a geographical information system
ICCHP'10 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Computers helping people with special needs
ICCHP'10 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Computers helping people with special needs
Verbally annotated tactile maps - challenges and approaches
SC'10 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Spatial cognition
Special Section on Touching the 3rd Dimension: Prototyping 3D haptic data visualizations
Computers and Graphics
Evaluation of touch screen vibration accessibility for blind users
Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
Enriching graphic maps to enable multimodal interaction by blind people
UAHCI'13 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction: design methods, tools, and interaction techniques for eInclusion - Volume Part I
Hi-index | 0.00 |
This article presents an automatic approach, complete with a prototype system, to supporting fast and independent access to online maps for local navigation by people with visual impairment. With user-inputted start and end addresses from a keyboard, the approach first queries MapQuest (www.mapquest.com) for obtaining the walking directions and the corresponding map image. Then, it automatically converts the obtained information in a form that can be reproduced immediately through a tactile printer, and subsequently generates an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file, which associates textual descriptions of the directions with a recreated tactile map. The tactile hard copy can be placed on a touchpad which is connected to a computer. With the generated SVG file opened in the computer, a user can explore the tactile map by hands, receiving instant audio feedback of the directions by pressing certain regions with special tactile patterns. This approach supports instant queries of walking directions without requiring tedious manual conversion by a sighted professional. The audio-tactile patterns, the adaptive representation scheme and the blind-friendly user interface are specifically designed for the visually-impaired users. Results from experimental evaluation based on a group of users with visual impairment suggest that the proposed approach is effective for providing blind computer users with independent access to geographic directions.