[BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher than high school geometry.

[John Gardner]

David, Very nice! A really excellent discussion of the challenge of graphics accessibility. 
I want folks to be aware of a project being undertaken as part of a NSF Convergent Accelerator grant that ViewPlus is a partner in. If our Phase II proposal is funded, our 'Inclusio' project hopes to initiate a major improvement in ease of access to electronic information. A critical part is making it easy to create graphics that are mainstream and fully accessible. One part of the project that will be done whether or not the grant is approved is developing a metadata standard that will assure interoperability of graphics files. In simple terms we are seeking the ideal of files (initially SVG) that can be 'viewed' in all ways that users want and/or have available. This would include descriptions, printed tactile graphics, graphics viewed by audio-tactile or audio-haptic methods, or viewed on newly-developed multi-line braille/graphics displays, and who knows what future methods. Currently ViewPlus is leading this development as part of a large group of partners. And in collaboration with other efforts such as the APH e-braille project, DAISY, etc. Things are just beginning, and unfortunately there is presently not much detail that I can share, but the project is underway, and details will be emerging soon. 

Stay tuned and stay optimistic.

John



-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of David W. Farmer via BlindMath
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2023 2:21 PM
To: Ramana Polavarapu via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: David W. Farmer <farmer at aimath.org>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher than high school geometry.


We will set up a Zoom session for people who are interested in learning about about what we are doing.  Here are some brief comments for now.

The placement of labels on diagrams is indeed difficult to automate.
David Austin is working on a lightweight markup language which can be used to generate both the visual diagram to go in the PDF and also the tactile diagram to be embossed.

The hope is to generate both types of diagrams automatically, without human intervention.  I believe he is close to having an approach for the diagrams which typically occur in a precalculus or single variable calculus textbook.  (Avoiding collisions between the content and the label is a specific design
point.)


Descriptions of diagrams are possibly even more complicated and I think there is no hope of doing that automatically.  The issue is that the exact same diagram (or photograph or other image) needs to be described differently in different contexts.  The author had a reason for including that diagram, and that diagram is meant to illustrate something specific.  I am not optimistic about AI reading the author's mind.

As a simple example, consider the graph of a line on the Cartesian plane.
I might describe it as the line with x-intercept 5 and y-intercept 12.
If you are familiar with the subject, then I just told you everything you need to know to imagine the graph.  And depending on context, that is all that needs to be said.  A more wordy description from AI would waste valuable time.  (For example, I might now ask: which quadrant does the line not intersect?  Or "What point on the line is closest to the
origin?")

But what if the graph occurs in an exercise for someone learning what "y-intercept" means?  Then the description certainly should not explicitly say what the y-intercept is!  It would take some skill from a knowledgeable person to describe the graph in a way that conveyed the necessary information without giving away the answer.

Regards,

David



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