[Blindmath] Extracting bitmap images from pdf files

Wed Jan 25 21:46:44 UTC 2012

Can someone tell me if it's possible to emboss these SIG files on a Tiger?

At 03:34 PM 1/25/2012, you wrote:
>It looks like the free online pdf to html converter at
>http://www.pdftohtml.net/ will get the job done.
>
>There are a couple of required steps that are probably not accessible by a
>blind student, but at least if the student has a sighted assistant to
>extract and crop the image files, the student can convert them to enhanced
>sig files or enhanced  svg files and emboss them.
>
>In case anyone is interested, I attached a zip file that contains two sig
>files. Each sig file represents one half of an enhanced version of a bitmap
>file extracted from a physics book. If you have access to an embosser that
>will accept sig files as input, emboss each file and lay them side by side
>to create the entire embossed image.
>
>Parameters were set set for 8.5-inch page width at 12 dpi. If your embosser
>has a different page width or dpi value, you should still get an output but
>some of the output may not fit the page. The output also assumes that the
>embosser is equipped with continuous-form tractor-fed paper and can emboss
>across the page perforations to produce embossed images that are longer
>than 11 inches. If your embosser doesn't operate in that mode, I don't know
>what will happen to the bottom portion of the embossed image.
>
>Considerably more detail could be preserved by enlarging the tactile image
>and producing additional side-by-side panels, but there is a trade-off
>between more detail and the practical aspects of handling tactile images
>that are 2, 3, 4, or more pages wide.
>
>This is an image of a battery showing the plates on either side, the
>positive and negative ions in the solution between the plates, the + and -
>poles at the top of the plates, etc. Not a great image, but probably useful
>as a supplement to the description of the image in the textbook.
>
>Dick Baldwin
>
>
>On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Sina Bahram <sbahram at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I had in mind the pro version of acrobat, but that solution hardly scales.
> >
> > Let me think on this for a bit.
> >
> > Website: www.SinaBahram.com
> > Twitter: @SinaBahram
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> > On Behalf Of Richard Baldwin
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 2:25 PM
> > To: john.gardner at orst.edu; Blind Math list for those interested in
> > mathematics
> > Cc: accessibleimage at freelists.org
> > Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Extracting bitmap images from pdf files
> >
> > Sina,
> >
> > I have tried the pdf to html image harvesting trick with several onsite
> > converters. Dozens of websites claim to offer the conversion service. Of
> > the four or five that I tried, only one seemed to do the job and as I
> > recall, it was limited to 2-mbyte pdf files, which is a problem. Also, on
> > that one, whenever I harvested the image from the html page, I got a large
> > blank image with a small image somewhere on it. Although I can crop the
> > small image from the large blank image, sight is required to pull that off.
> >
> >  Do you have a favorite way to convert pdf files to html files?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Dick Baldwin
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:33 PM, John Gardner <john.gardner at orst.edu
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > Dick, if someone is fortunate enough to have a ViewPlus embosser and IVEO
> > > Creator Pro, she can have pretty good access to images.
> > > * import the PDF into IVEO Creator Pro.
> > > * Check the PDF to find which pages have images of interest and emboss
> > > those
> > > pages.
> > > * Put the embossed page on the touchpad and "Zoom Rectangle" by clicking
> > on
> > > diagonally-opposite corners of the image of interest.  This will zoom
> > that
> > > image to occupy maximum size the page will permit.
> > > * Emboss the zoomed image and read it using the touchpad.  Horizontal
> > text
> > > on the image should read when pressed.  The OCR in Creator Pro works
> > really
> > > well with PDF's so if the resolution is at all decent, the text usually
> > is
> > > OCRed well.
> > > * Go back to the original image and do same for any other image on that
> > > page.  Repeat for images on other pages.
> > >
> > > Note that a sighted person can skip the first embossing step and just
> > zoom
> > > those images.  Handy to have sighted people around, but if there aren't
> > it
> > > just takes a little longer.  By the way, that sighted person can create
> > > overlays on important objects on the graphic and label them to improve
> > > accessibility even more.
> > >
> > > John
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> > > On
> > > Behalf Of Richard Baldwin
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 10:08 AM
> > > To: BlindMath Mailing List; accessibleimage at freelists.org
> > > Subject: [Blindmath] Extracting bitmap images from pdf files
> > >
> > > Many blind students receive electronic textbooks in pdf format.
> > >
> > > Many textbooks contain lots of images.
> > >
> > > Many images are poorly described in textbooks.
> > >
> > > Various ways to convert bitmap images into tactile images are available
> > --
> > > some fairly good, some not so good, some very poor. However, regardless
> > of
> > > the quality of the conversion to tactile format, you must have the
> > original
> > > image file in order to get anything.
> > >
> > > I have tried four or five different online file conversion sites in an
> > > attempt to find a clean way that a blind student can extract the images
> > > from a pdf textbook file without success. Different sites have different
> > > problems, but they all seem to have some kind of problems that make it
> > very
> > > difficult to extract the images from pdf files.
> > >
> > > Has anyone identified an online site or downloadable program that is
> > > available either free or at a reasonable price to cleanly extract the
> > > images from pdf files, which often range up to 10 or more megabytes  or
> > > more in size?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > 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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> > >
> > >
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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/
> > _______________________________________________
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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/
>
>Content-Type: application/zip; name="SigFiles.zip"
>Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="SigFiles.zip"
>X-Attachment-Id: f_gxussuci0
>
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