[Blindmath] responding for few topics

[Dániel Hajas]

Dear everyone,

 

Excuse me for the late response for all of your kind letters, I have been
quite busy with academic stuff near the end of term.

 

I would like to respond to couple of e-mails and topics at once here:

 

Lucia!

question about Phoenix:

This is the first time I hear of Phoenix. I would like to ask if I
understand correctly that this is both an embosser, which comes with the
software. With the software we are able to create using our own graphics
(just like in Python let's say) but what is more we can scan a graphic,
which is imported in the programme as a markup language source code that we
are able to edit, so to clean it up. Then the edited version could be saved
as an image and printed out. Am I on a good track? 

Can the software accessed on its own or just with the embosser? Is there a
trial version?

 

Lucia wrote:

As far as readability goes, no one has done a study comparing embossed
graphics to any other production method (at least that I am aware of).

 

This is what I can conclude as well based on my preliminary research on this
topic. For this reason I am determined to start and carry out a project,
which of course involves a thorough research and also the development of a
new method of producing audio - tactile graphics. However, up to now this is
just an idea in my head and a short description of the project for my
potential supervisor waiting for her judgement, so I am not going into
details.

 

Before we wrote the Guidelines and Standards for Tactile Graphics, we did a
readability study for graphics using examples in the production methods that
were available at that time. Tiger was the only high resolution graphics
embosser on the market and was not studied. The purpose of the study was to
identify what characteristics make a graphic readable rather than to
determine which production method was easiest to read.

 

May I please ask you where could I access both your guide lines and
standards and perhaps some documentation on the  research? Can you perhaps
send it to my directly or is there a site where I could download?

 

Steve!

About Braille instructions 

Since I only started to lose my vision roughly 4 years ago, I am not yet
familiar with braille. I learnt a couple of symbols that are mostly limited
to the alphanumeric collection. However, I do not know any of the Greek
letters or mathematical symbols, moreover, I am unable to read fluently,
which does not allow me efficient working. Thus I am relying on audio output
for now, though I have a quite extensive book on mathematical and physical
braille symbols. The only problem is that it is only printed and in a not
very accessible pdf.

 

So braille is out of question for now but I agree with you ont hat it would
make life much easier at this field. I plan to learn it one day but
unfortunately, this is not an one night plan. 

 

Michael!

About LaTeX and MathType:

Yes, you got it right, I am using LaTeX quite often. I do not master it yet
but made a great progress over the past 7 months. I wrote few lengthy
scientific reports in TeX and also I receive and submit my daily lecture
notes and course work int ex source code. There is still a lot to learn
about it buta t least I am happy using it. 

 

I would be interested in Math Type as well though, because so far LaTeX and
the macro LaTeX-Access written for JAWS is my only tool to read and write
math conveniently. So it is always good to have an alternative. 

 

About requirements at the university:

 

As far as I know the university was teaching MatLab few years back in time
but just recently they decided to consider Maple. We have done it last term
and similarly I had accessibility issues with it. I could only use it with a
sighted assistant. Does anyone know about Maple and how accessible it is?
Perhaps I just did not find the way to use it correctly. I haven't got as
many trouble with input as with reading the output.

 

Right now we started using Python, which we will continue next year. After
that the only markup language we need to study is C++ but I believe it is
accessible. So basically Maple (but only in past), Python, C++ and of course
LaTeX as a hobby learning, since we will need it later on. 

 

About the Apple Mac:

No worries about sounding negative, I prefer objective oppinions rather than
unrealistic ones. This is the reason why I requested a loan, so I can test
the OS X. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you ont hat Voice Over does
not allow scientific work. I only test it for a week but I miss many
functions of JAWS. This is a little disappointing since I really start to
like the Macbook for general purposes such as, e-mail, notes, web browsing
and many other features. I really like the ability of using the multitouch
trackpad. This is my favourite, which I would be happy to see in Windows.

 

Thanks for letting me know about the Math Ml improvement in ios 7. I had no
idea about it. I sadly still use ios 5. on my iPhone 4. I heard ios 7 is
getting quite slow on older phones and Apple decided to change the tts
profile of the language I use. In some aspects this was a step back, and
reading a simple book is less joyful with the new voice.

 

John Gardner!

About LEAN math and the embosser:

 

I would be absolutely interested in LEAN Math. I am happy to try any
alternative besides using LaTeX, though at the university lecturers tend to
discourage us of using Ms. Word. Well, better to say they encourage us to
use tools such as Latex or Python, etc instead of making documents in Word
or calculations in Excel. Of course it is not a requirement and they accept
Word documents and most of us still use Excel but for future it seems
beneficial to 

use markup language instead of VISYVIG editors. 

So if you could give me more info on LEAN Math and perhaps put me on the
beta list, I would be grateful.

 

About the embosser:

Did you say Sussex already has one at the university? Well, if they do so,
they are hiding it very efficiently. All I can use for now is a swell paper
machine. So I would like to know more about this technology.

 

But I will contact you with regards this off list.

 

Few more questions to all of you:

SVG and Math ml:

I hear more and more about SVG file sin context of accessibility. So what is
it exactly? Why is it more accessible? Is it only because it is a markup
language based document rather than visual or something more. I know that in
Python I can save the graphs I write in a mark-up as SVG but never really
knew if I should or it is the same in jpg or png for instance.

 

Similarly, I hear more and more about Math ml. Again I have no experience
with this. Could somebody give me some info on this, why is it good, how
does it work etc. I am familiar with html, if that means anything at all in
this issue.

 

Apologies for the long e-mail and many thanks for all the info.

 

Best wishes,

Daniel