[Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

Mon Sep 10 21:47:05 UTC 2012

For anyone interested, I'll try to find the link to the Ziegler 
article about the VOICE and send it to you.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jasmine Kotsay <jasmine.kotsay at gmail.com
To: Lloyd Rasmussen <lras at sprynet.com>,Blind Talk Mailing List 
<blindtlk at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 14:12:43 -0700
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

That sounds pretty interesting!

Sent from my iPod Touch

On Sep 8, 2012, at 8:02 PM, "Lloyd Rasmussen" <lras at sprynet.com> 
wrote:

 the vOICe is not really a device, but it uses devices you may 
already have.  If you have a webcam connected to your PC, or if 
you have it look at your screen or the active window or the area 
around the mouse pointer, it converts the image into a 
"soundscape" which is an audio signal, rescanned every two 
seconds, which represents the image.  Probably best used with 
stereo headphones.  In this representation, an imaginary vertical 
line scans across the image from left to right.  At each instant, 
tones are generated with highest pitch being toward the top of 
the image, and with volume of each pitch corresponding to the 
brightness of the image at that point.  By default, 64 different 
frequencies are generated, and 176 vertical lines constitute a 
two-second scan.  A single vertical line would sound like a burst 
of noise.  A horizontal line sounds like a tone of constant pitch 
which lasts the whole 2 seconds, which pans from left to right in 
your headphones.  A print capital V would sound like a tone which 
falls and then rises in pitch, repeated every two seconds.  You 
can adjust most of the parameters of how the image is sonified, 
including zooming it, changing the scan rate, reversing the 
video, filtering by one color, etc.

 It's a small Windows executable.  People who really get into 
this obtain a webcam that is built into a pair of glasses, put a 
portable computer in a backpack (providing for enough 
ventilation), run the software with speech recognition, and walk 
around the house or the area learning how to distinguish objects, 
learning about how occlusion and parallax work, etc.

 Whereas the Optacon was a direct translation aid (the human has 
to do all the work of interpreting what the camera sees) for 
printed material, the vOICe is probably most useful as a direct 
translation aid for sensing the environment or quick rendering of 
images that appear on a PC.  Like the Optacon, it takes lots and 
lots of practice to get good at using it, and it remains mostly a 
subject for experimentation rather than a tool that a lot of 
blind people are using in their daily lives.  It would not be a 
good travel aid, in my opinion, because you need to hear 
environmental sounds and the time to recognize a scene is long.  
And Peter Meijer, the author, is careful not to make any claims 
that it would be a good substitute for a cane or guide dog.  The 
first version, run in dedicated hardware, is now 20 years old.  I 
think that the Windows executable is about 15 years old 
(undergoes continuous improvements).  An Android  version
 has been in Google Play for about 2 years.  He also did one for 
Simbian cell phones, but these are disappearing from the market.

 This is probably more than you wanted to know, but I think it is 
fascinating.  www.seeingwithsound.com .
 Lloyd Rasmussen, Wheaton, MD, W3IUU
 -----Original Message----- From: Chris Nusbaum
 Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 10:22 PM
 To: 'Blind Talk Mailing List'
 Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

 Hi Roger,

 I've heard of this device, but I don't think it works quite like 
the
 Optacon.  From what I read about it, it seemed like some kind of 
device that
 simulated the sense of sight by making the blind person feel 
like he/she is
 seeing the object being detected by the VOICE.  I was kind of 
intrigued by
 this technology, but couldn't quite wrap my head around how it 
works.  I
 would be interested to hear any firsthand accounts of how the 
technology
 works from anybody who has actually used the device.  By the 
way, I read
 about this device in an article in the Matilda Ziegler magazine 
a few months
 ago.

 Chris

 -----Original Message-----
 From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
 Behalf Of Roger devin Prater
 Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 9:35 PM
 To: Blind Talk Mailing List
 Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

 Hmm, have any of you tried the vOICe? http://seeingwithsound.com 
It works,
 as far as I know about the opticon, like it, only it uses sound 
instead of
 tactiles, and is free.  http://seeingwithsound.come just in case 
I misspelled
 it the first time, LOL.
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com
 To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org
 Cc: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org
 Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 8:26 PM
 Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

 Absolutely not! Translation into Braille means the unit would be
 telling you what it think it sees, not letting you interpret for
 yourself what the unit sees.

 Mike

 _______________________________________________
 blindtlk mailing list
 blindtlk at nfbnet.org
 http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindtlk_nfbnet.org
 To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account 
info for blindtlk:

http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindtlk_nfbnet.org/jasmine.kot
say%40gmail.com

_______________________________________________
blindtlk mailing list
blindtlk at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindtlk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for blindtlk:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindtlk_nfbnet.org/dotkid.nusb
aum%40gmail.com