[Blindmath] Status Report on BackNem Nemeth BrailleBacktranslator

[Lanie]

Yes, we will! NUBS is so much simpler than UEB.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Osterhaus" <osterhauss at tsbvi.edu
To: "'Blind Math list for those interested in 
mathematics'"<blindmath at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:04:28 -0600
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Status Report on BackNem Nemeth 
BrailleBacktranslator

Hi Susan J,

Thanks so much for your valuable input, especially knowing that 
NUBS will
make back-translating much easier.  Lanie, I happen to know that 
you like
NUBS, so we'll just have to be sure that NUBS gets adopted!!

Susan

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Susan Jolly
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:24 PM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindmath] Status Report on BackNem Nemeth Braille 
Backtranslator

Since Susan O.  was kind enough to ask about the status of my 
BackNem
backtranlator here it is.

Let me begin by noting that there has been some discussion on 
this list
about backtranslation of braille math not being an appropriate 
strategy
since there are numerous modern tools that blind persons can use 
to produce
properly typeset print mathematics.  Here is my opinion on this 
issue.  All
of these tools require writing the math using one of the many 
different math
entry systems, such as LaTeX or ASCIIMathML, to create a source 
file.  These
source file are not intended to be read directly but must be 
processed by
software so as to produce typeset math.  I don't see that this 
approach is
significantly different from using Nemeth math as a math entry 
system,
especially in the context of a braille user who is taking courses 
in math.

[I understand that braille users may end up in careers or 
situations where
they need to be familiar with certain software although this is 
constantly
changing.  As I've mentioned before, I never had to learn LaTeX 
because it
was thought to be a more efficient use of our time as scientists 
for our
secretaries to take care of  such things.]

Now to answer the question.  I worked for six or so years 
developing a Nemeth
backtranslator although it has now been more than four years 
since I did any
significant work on this.  What BackNem does is to parse or 
interpret braille
and translate it to MathML plus HTML.  BackNem uses a combination 
of Java
code generated automatically from hand-written ANTLR v2 grammars 
together
with hand-written Java.  There are a growing number of apps that 
can render
MathML so there was no need to develop a renderer.

You can read a somewhat out-of-date overview article about 
BackNem here and
either follow the links in that article or go directly to the 
Table of
Contents for more information.
http://braille2print.org/backnem2.htm
http://braille2print.org/backnemtoc.htm

Part of the reason BackNem was never released was because of the 
very poor
response to the alpha test.  Please note the overview article is 
out-of-date
as far as its reference to an alpha test.  (Also please ignore 
the
meaningless pop-up warning message.)

A serious technical issue that arose was the release and 
widespread adoption
of ANTLR v3 which is not backward compuatible with ANTLR v2 but 
which has so
many advantages that continuing development or even maintenance 
in ANTLR v2
did not make sense.  I did write some test grammars in ANTLR v3 
and had plans
to convert BackNem to ANTLR v3 but ended up not doing this for 
various
reasons.

One reason is that I was discouraged by the ongoing uncertainty 
as far as
the braille math code to be used here in the United States.  A 
lot of the
complexity of BackNem is related to distinguishing math 
expressions from
text since the Nemeth code does not directly distinguish math and 
text but
assumes that the human reader will have no problem doing so.  
However, just
as I had pretty much finished a first cut at developing this 
capability,
there seemed to be the possibility of changes to braille math.

One possibility is that the US will adopts NUBS, which is a 
modernized
version of Nemeth that distinguishes math and text in a way that 
would be
easy for an automated backtranslator to interpret.  BackNem could 
be
considerably simplified if NUBS were adopted although, of course, 
it would
have to be extended to handle the changes from Nemeth to NUBS.
http://braille2print.org/implement.htm#auto

A second possibility is that the US will adopts UEB, which is 
totally
different from Nemeth or NUBS.  Since I have such a negative 
opinion of UEB
I cannot imagine being motivated to develop a UEB backtranslator.

There is a large community of ANTLR v3 experts who are also 
expert Java
programmers.  If BANA decides either to stick with the Nemeth 
code or to
adopt NUBS I would be willing to work (as a volunteer) with one 
or more
persons with the appropriate ANTLR plus Java expertise to finish 
BackNem.  I
estimate this would take no more than six calendar months.

Of course, it would also be necessary to develop an 
organizational structure
for maintaining BackNem.  I would hope that BackNem could remain 
open source
and free which means the organizational structure would need some 
sort of
independent support.

Susan Jolly


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