Automatic Production of Tactile Graphics From Scalable Vector Graphics
By Krufka, Stephen E.; Barner, Kenneth E.; ASSETS 2005 - The Seventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 166-172Publication Date: October 9-12, 2005
Research paper presents a method to convert vector graphics, an increasing trend in web-based graphics, into tactile representations for the blind. The proposed method builds on prior research into methods that extract object boundaries from images to produce raised-line tactile pictures, extending the idea to vector graphics in producing tactile pictures where important outlines are emphasized. Important outlines are determined by using the hierarchical structure of a vector graphic. A Braille printer is used where raised dots are embossed for the outlining boundaries. Important and detail boundaries are embossed with dots of larger and smaller height, respectively, while all other regions contain no raised dots. Evaluative tests were conducted of a person’s ability to discriminate, identify, and comprehend tactile pictures using the proposed method and two alternative methods. Twenty participants, of which 6 were blind, performed discrimination, identification and comprehension tests with a diverse set of images. Results showed the proposed method had advantage over the other methods in the understanding of automatically generated tactile pictures.
Published by: Association for Computing Machinery (Website:http://www.acm.org)
SIGACCESS (ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing) (Web Site: http://www.sigaccess.org )
