[Blindmath] Using embossing powder with an inkjet printer to create tactile graphics

[Richard Baldwin]

I keep searching for a simple, cheap, and effective way for blind students
to convert computer-generated printed graphics into tactile graphics without
the assistance of a sighted person.

The article at http://www.cebug.org/blogs/embossing-powder-inkjet-printerand
numerous other online articles describe a process that people use to
emboss computer-generated designs onto their craft projects.

The process appears to be relatively inexpensive, requiring only an inkjet
printer, a heat gun that sells for around $30.00, and embossing power that
sells for about $5.00 for a small container that can be used to emboss
multiple documents.

The process appears to be well developed (as a craft) in non-computer
graphics where rubber stamps are used to apply wet graphic designs to paper
before applying the embossing powder and the heat. Because of the size of
that market, I would assume that the chemistry of the process is well
understood by the manufacturers of the embossing powder.

Has anyone tried using this process to convert computer-generated graphics
into tactile graphics for blind students?

Assuming that the process would produce usable tactile graphics, is this a
process that could be routinely and independently accomplished by a blind
student?

If the process would produced usable tactile graphics and could be routinely
and independently accomplished by a blind student, this might create a
market of sufficient size to entice some entrepreneurial person to start an
online business refilling spent ink cartridges with a slow-drying ink, since
that seems to be one of the keys to embossing computer-generated graphic
designs.

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/