An interactive braille-recognition system for the visually impaired based on a portable camera

ABSTRACT

We develop an interactive Braille-recognition system using a portable camera for visually impaired persons who cannot read Braille. Our system helps them to find and then push a desired button, as is necessary when using an elevator or a ticket vending machine, for example. It is natural to think that the information provided, in Braille, with specific buttons is sufficient for successful operation in using an elevator or a ticket vending machine. Most visually impaired persons, however, cannot read Braille. To push a desired button, the user needs to hear only the word or letter associated with the specific Braille character so that s/he can correctly relate the buttons to Braille characters. If the user is informed of all the Braille characters in front of her/him, s/he will be unable to relate the buttons to Braille characters. In our system, the user interactively specifies the location of a particular Braille character to be read by using hand gestures. The system recognizes the user's gestures and reads the desired Braille aloud. In our preliminary experiment, six blindfolded subjects were all able to interact with our system, and recognized the meaning of the buttons that s/he identified.

REFERENCES

• 1: Dept. of Health and Welfare for Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: "Result of A Survey Pertaining to Physically Impaired (surveyed in June 1 2001)" (in Japanese), 2002.
• 2: X. Fernández Hermida, A. Corbacho Rodríguez and F. Martín Rodríguez: "A Braille O.C.R. for Blind People", Proc. of ICSPAT, 1996.
• 3: J. Terrillon, A. Pilprè, Y. Nishizawa and K. Yamamoto: "Analysis of Human Skin Color Images for a Large Set of Color Spaces and for Different Camera Systems", Proc. of IAPR Workshop on Machine Vision Application, pp.20--25, 2002.
• 4: Andreas Hub , Joachim Diepstraten , Thomas Ertl, Design and development of an indoor navigation and object identification system for the blind, Proceedings of the 6th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility, October 18-20, 2004, Atlanta, GA, USA
• 5: David A. Ross , Bruce B. Blasch, Wearable interfaces for orientation and wayfinding, Proceedings of the fourth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies, p.193-200, November 13-15, 2000, Arlington, Virginia, United States [doi>10.1145/354324.354380]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.6 Methodology and Techniques
          Subjects: Interaction techniques

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues
          Subjects: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

Keywords:
braille recognition, gesture recognition, wearable computer