Rehabilitation Engineering DivisionDepartment for Design Sciences
Haptic Line-drawings for Blind Persons
Calle Sjöström
Presentation Outline
• Haptic technology• Three application areas
– Mathematical graphs– Line drawings– Maps and floor plans
• Results and conclusions
The Haptics Group at Certec• Was an acronym: Center for Rehabilitation Technology• The Rehabilitation Engineering Division• Part of the Department of Design Sciences,
Lund Institute of Technology,Lund University, Sweden
• Have been working with haptic programs and interfaces for blind people since 1995.
• http://www.certec.lth.se/haptics
Computer Access for Blind People
• There are good ways to access text– Braille display– Speech synthesis
• Graphics is hard to access• We want to address that problem –
haptic technology is one way
Haptic Technology
• Touch interaction– Based on finger/hand
movements and feedbackvia the sense of touch
The PHANToM
• fromSensAbleTechnologies
Aims of This Study
• Haptic mathematical graphs –– Can these tools help a blind person understand
scientific phenomena?
• Haptic line drawings –– Can they be understood by blind persons?
• Haptics maps and floor plans –– Can they be used for real life orientation?
• Parts of a bigger study, more tomorrow
Mathematical Graphs
• Ecological system simulation
• Possible to change the fertility of the herbivores
• Number of animals on the island plotted
Mathematical Graphs
Line Drawings
• Haptic relief• Identify object• Find parts
Line Drawings
Floor Plans
• Haptic relief– Walls and
thresholds
• Sound labels
Floor Plans IRL
Test User Group
• 11 persons in Sweden• 14 persons in Italy• All users are blind• Both children and adults (12-85 years)
Results – Mathematics
• All users could feel the curve• 78% could solve the ecological problem
Results – Line Drawings
• 62% could identify the first pic without help
• 33% could identify the second picwithout help
• 88/83% could find and comment on parts of the man/elephant once they knew what it was.
Results – Floor Plans
• 83% of the users could count the rooms and find a specific room without sound
• 6/7 (86%) of the users could find the treasure on the map. 5 of these could then go to the correct room IRL
Conclusions
• Haptic mathematics useful even for real learning situations
• Haptic line drawings feasible but difficult – context very important
• Haptic maps maps promising – many positive comments from the users
Thank You!
• Calle Sjöström• [email protected]• http://www.certec.lth.se/haptics
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