[Blindmath] great question...Re: Economical tactile graphics - Microcapsule or Swell Paper in a microwave oven?

Wed Aug 10 17:13:03 UTC 2011

What would happen if you left one of those sheets out in the sun? There's 
plenty of that right now in TX.

Amanda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Baldwin" <baldwin at dickbaldwin.com>
To: <john.gardner at orst.edu>; "Blind Math list for those interested in 
mathematics" <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] great question...Re: Economical tactile graphics - 
Microcapsule or Swell Paper in a microwave oven?

> Hi John, welcome back to this side of the Atlantic.
>
> Now if you could just figure out how to package the Tiger in a
> price/weight/size/power range of a low-cost HP Laptop, everyone could have
> economical access to your IVEO Learning System. Well maybe asking for
> battery power is asking a little too much...<grin>
>
> Dick Baldwin
>
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 11:40 AM, John Gardner 
> <john.gardner at orst.edu>wrote:
>
>> Richard, the trick to swell paper is the differential absorption of IR
>> light
>> by the dark and light regions.  This is critical.  In fact, many printers
>> will not give adequate copy - they must print with certain black inks 
>> that
>> have an absorption band in the right region, and many black inks 
>> apparently
>> do not.  So no heat source that does not flood the paper with IR light is
>> gonna work.  Sorry.
>>
>> One can imagine a home-made system employing an IR heat lamp, which can 
>> be
>> purchased for a few dollars.  I know that this has been tried by various
>> tinkerers, but it has not been made to work, because nobody can figure 
>> out
>> how to expose the full page to more or less uniform radiation of the
>> correct
>> intensity from a single lamp or even several such lamps.  Moreover, one 
>> has
>> to be pretty careful not to get some portion of the paper too hot - if 
>> you
>> do, it catches fire.  Some of the less expensive swell paper "toasters"
>> have
>> had an unfortunate tendency to catch fire.  As far as I know, none of 
>> these
>> are still on the market.
>>
>> Commercial swell paper toasters use an IR heat bar wide enough to cover 
>> the
>> full width of the paper.  The radiation dose is controlled by the speed 
>> of
>> movement, and one finds the right speed by trial and error.  Swell paper 
>> is
>> notoriously non-reproducible to manufacture, and one often needs a bit of
>> trial and error for every new batch of paper.  Maybe modern papers are 
>> more
>> uniform than they once were though.
>>
>> With practice one can learn to make pretty good swell paper graphics but 
>> it
>> is not trivial.  I never could make reliable swell paper tactiles - which
>> was one of the motivating forces to our invention of Tiger embossing
>> technology!
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>> On
>> Behalf Of Richard Baldwin
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 9:06 AM
>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] great question...Re: Economical tactile 
>> graphics -
>> Microcapsule or Swell Paper in a microwave oven?
>>
>> I just had another thought while communicating with another individual on
>> this topic.
>>
>> My wife has a laminating machine that she uses to fuse documents between
>> two
>> sheets of plastic with heat. I don't know how much she paid for it, but a
>> quick Google search shows laminating machines in the price range of $50 
>> and
>> up. I'm guessing that the price increases with the size of the documents
>> that the machine can accommodate and perhaps the amount of control that 
>> the
>> user has over the fusing temperature.
>>
>> I wonder if such a laminating machine could be used to toast the Swell
>> Paper
>> at a price tag substantially less than $1500.
>>
>> I would like to be able to produce medium quality tactile graphics in my
>> office at a cost that competes with the cost of a cheap ink-squirt 
>> printer
>> (exclusive of the cost of paper).
>>
>> While the cost of Swell Paper will never compete with the cost of 
>> ordinary
>> printer paper, a huge increase in demand might bring the cost of Swell
>> Paper
>> down to less than $1.00 per sheet.
>>
>> Among its other advantages, the availability of convenient and low-cost
>> tactile graphics would open the door to the use of the IVEO Learning 
>> System
>> for tens of thousands of blind students who have no access to a Tiger
>> embossing machine. Lots of students and organizations that can't afford a
>> Tiger embossing machine could afford an IVEO touchpad to use with the 
>> free
>> IVEO Viewer software and a computer that they already own. (I have
>> successfully used the IVEO Viewer software with an old but small Wacom
>> digitizer pad with a USB interface and a stylus.)
>>
>> While the quality of Swell Paper may not be close to the quality of the
>> Tiger output, the quality my be good enough to be used as a finger guide 
>> on
>> an IVEO touchpad. If so, the detailed information could be embedded in 
>> the
>> low-cost end of the process, which is to provide voice annotation in the
>> SVG
>> file, instead of needing to embed it in the high-cost end of the process,
>> which is embossing the tactile graphic image.
>>
>> I believe that once a large database of IVEO users is established, the
>> folks
>> at ViewPlus could develop and sell an enhanced Viewer software package 
>> that
>> would contains many useful features that may not even have been thought 
>> of
>> yet, along with an enhanced IVEO Creator package to support those 
>> features.
>> That is one end of the scenario.
>>
>> At the other end, an individual blind student who is willing to learn to
>> draw using SVG could create IVEO-compatible SVG files with little more 
>> than
>> a text editor and an idea.
>>
>> It all hinges on making it possible for everyone involved to conveniently
>> and economically create tactile graphics. In my opinion, that is one key 
>> to
>> the future of STEM education for blind students.
>>
>> End of sermon
>>
>> Dick Baldwin
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:28 AM, kelly marts
>> <kellyvision at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
>>
>> > Mr. Baldwin,
>> > I find this to be a question that has bothered me in the past year. I 
>> > am
>> a
>> > teacher of the visually impaired working in public schools. I have the
>> > luxury of
>> > working with skilled braillists that have the task of making our 
>> > tactile
>> > graphics.
>> >
>> > We are using a Tiger system as well as swell paper. The cost of the 
>> > swell
>> > paper
>> > is under 2 dollars per page. The cost of sheet fed braille paper is, 
>> > I'm
>> > guessing, 5 cents per sheet.
>> >
>> >
>> > The swell paper requires a 1500 dollar machine to toast the paper
>> > and computer
>> > systems and graphics software that are readily available. The Tiger
>> system
>> > has a
>> > 6000 to 10000 dollar cost initially. Training is provided. Again, the
>> > computer
>> > systems to generate the graphics are readily available.
>> >
>> >
>> > We use both. Which we use depends on the graphic and the experience of
>> the
>> > braillist. I perfer the Tiger graphics for math and science materials 
>> > in
>> > high
>> > school.
>> >
>> > This doesn't answer your question. I want to do a cost anaylsis though.
>> > Made me think.
>> > K
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: Richard Baldwin <baldwin at dickbaldwin.com>
>> > To: BlindMath Mailing List <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>> > Sent: Wed, August 10, 2011 10:02:52 AM
>> > Subject: [Blindmath] Economical tactile graphics - Microcapsule or 
>> > Swell
>> > Paper
>> > in a microwave oven?
>> >
>> > I keep thinking that one of the big needs in teaching STEM courses to
>> blind
>> > students is the need to quickly, easily, and economically create 
>> > tactile
>> > graphics from printed graphs and images.
>> >
>> > I have read about using Microcapsule or Swell Paper, which seems like a
>> > reasonable approach except that the heating devices are relatively
>> > expensive
>> > (more than the cost of an HP laptop) and not portable.
>> >
>> > Every teacher's lounge in K-12 and every student lounge in college has 
>> > a
>> > microwave oven. Many faculty members have a microwave oven in their
>> office.
>> > Has anyone tried heating a printed piece of swell paper in a microwave
>> oven
>> > to see how it reacts?  If it doesn't react well by itself, would it 
>> > help
>> to
>> > sandwich it between two pieces of the silver crisping cardboard that
>> comes
>> > with frozen pizza? Or how about sandwiching it between two of the
>> > gel-filled
>> > pads that are designed to be heated in a microwave oven and then 
>> > applied
>> to
>> > sore joints? That would tend to provide a more uniform heat to the
>> surface
>> > of the paper. I have been unable to find any specifications regarding 
>> > the
>> > temperature requirements for causing the microcapsules to swell.
>> >
>> > What can we do to dramatically improve the availability of custom-made
>> > tactile graphics?
>> >
>> > Is there a group or list that concentrates on such issues.  I found a
>> list
>> > named Adapted Graphics for the blind and visually impaired (Adapted
>> > Graphics) but I was unable to navigate the interface to get registered,
>> and
>> > in any event, there didn't appear to be any recent posts in the 
>> > archives?
>> >
>> > Dick Baldwin
>> >
>> > --
>> > Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
>> > Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
>> > http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>> >
>> > Professor of Computer Information Technology
>> > Austin Community College
>> > (512) 223-4758
>> > mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
>> > http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > Blindmath at nfbnet.org
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>> > Blindmath:
>> >
>> >
>>
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/kellyvision%40sbc
>> global.net
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> dwin.com
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
>> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
>> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>>
>> Professor of Computer Information Technology
>> Austin Community College
>> (512) 223-4758
>> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
>> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>
> Professor of Computer Information Technology
> Austin Community College
> (512) 223-4758
> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
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