[Blindmath] using tactile graphics

[Christine Szostak]

Hello Dianne and all,
  I would love to ask about the haptic mouse and/or if you have similar 
products that are marketed or able to be sold.

  Please allow me to explain my reason for this inquiry.

  I am a totally blind graduate student working on a Ph.D. in Cognitive 
Psychology at Ohio State. My specific focus of research is in understanding 
how humans process spoken words.

  In order to conduct research in this area, I frequently need to use 
spectrograms to examine and manipulate speech waves. Although I am able to 
do portions of this via ear independently, other parts require the use of a 
sighted assistant.

  thus, I would be really interested to know if the devices your lab works 
on are able to identify and provide images such as may be viewed on a 
spectrogram? In other words, what types of graphics can these products 
hapticly translate? Relatedly, are these products able to be purchased by 
the public at present? In your email to the list serve you noted that they 
could potentially be sold for less than $400 but I was uncertain whether 
this was only an estimate as the products your lab is working on are not yet 
available.
Many thanks,
Christine

Christine M. Szostak
Graduate Student
Language Perception Laboratory
Department of Psychology, Cognitive Area
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
szostak.1 at osu.edu


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dianne T Pawluk/FS/VCU" <dtpawluk at vcu.edu>
To: <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 2:00 PM
Subject: [Blindmath] using tactile graphics


> Hi Everyone,
>
> I am a researcher at VCU whose lab group is working on developing haptic
> computer interface
> devices and interactive display methods for tactile graphics.  As
> background for the question
> that I would like to ask, I would like to tell you about one of the
> devices that we made.  It is
> an improved, low-cost tactile mouse.  However, it differs from previous
> tactile mice, such as
> the VT Player, in that it solves some of the problems that we feel make
> using the VT Player
> or similar devices very difficult to use.  The first problem we identified
> is that the VT Player
> and all other tactile devices that use an optical mouse sensor, suffers
> from a significant
> lack of accuracy in the haptic position information, which is critical for
> interpreting a graphic.
> It also has a lack of spatial concordance between the position information
> of the optical
> sensor and the tactile arrays, which is particularly noticeable when the
> mouse is rotated.
> It also has a slow temporal response, which creates a time delay which
> makes it difficult
> to use when moving the device quickly.  We have fixed all these problems
> and have developed
> a fully functional device for less than $400 US.  We would like to test
> our device against other
> tactile mice and the typically used method for displaying tactile
> graphics.
>
> My question is that when you are in an educational or work environment and
> need to
> create and use a graph, would you use a Braille embosser to create the
> graphic or puff paper?
> Unfortunately, the way our experiment is designed, we can only really
> afford the time
> to look at one of these (as otherwise, with the other factors involved the
> experiment would
> become very tiresome) and would like to choose the method typically used
> by the
> expected end users of our device.
>
> Thanks very much for your help!  And if you have any questions you would
> like to
> ask about our work, feel free to do so.
>
> Sincerely,
> Dianne Pawluk
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