[Nfb-science] access to plots and graphics

[Peter Donahue]

Hello Amy and everyone,

    For the benefit of other listers Amy has also worked with students at 
Perkins and was a commencement speaker at a recent graduation ceremony. 
She's the kind of blind mentor those students need someone I wish was around 
when I attended Perkins and several other schools for the blind. I think she 
would be a wonderful addition to the NFB Youth SLAM Team if she has the time 
to commit to it.

    Since this list and the NFB are all about encouraging blind youth and 
adults to consider STEM careers you've come to the right place. As for 
tactile graphics let me suggest visiting: http://www.blindscience.org for 
starters. All the best for a wonderful holiday season and oh yes. Keep an 
eye on those sharks inhabiting the waters off of Cape Cod. I'm originally 
from Brockton but now live in San Antonio Texas.

Peter Donahue



 From: "Amy Bower" <abower at whoi.edu>
To: <nfb-science at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 10:49 AM
Subject: [Nfb-science] access to plots and graphics


All- I'm new to this list and apologize if my questions have been covered
previously.



I've been  a research scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
for 24 years. As a grad student, I was diagnosed with macular degeneration
and RP. Since then, my vision has slowly declined. But with the aid of video
magnifiers, screen magnifiers and screen readers, I've been able to continue
with my career more or less as would anyone else, receiving tenure and a
series of promotions.



My research mainly involves the collection and analysis  of physical data
from the oceans. I use several programming and plotting tools, but primarily
Matlab. Of course I also read and write journal articles and other
publications.



My question is about access to graphics. Until recently, I could use my
remaining vision and either a video magnifier or screen magnifier to access
plots and graphics. That is getting more difficult, and I'm thinking about
alternatives. One of course is a human reader to describe plots and
graphics. But I'm wondering if anyone uses any more independent techniques.
There are a couple of ideas I have but haven't used extensively. One is
using the mouse echo feature of Magic/Jaws, which says the text under the
pointer (sometimes). If I can see where the axes labels are, for example, I
can move the mouse there and read what the label is. Another possibility is
the Convenient OCR feature in Jaws, which will scan and OCR the content of
any window. That method will probably read the text in an odd order though,
making it difficult to synthesize the information.



I've been keeping my eye on tactile graphics, but my impression so far is
that this technology is not mature enough to use in a fast-paced research
environment. I'm open to other opinions if there are professionals using
tactile graphics for their research.



Thanks and best regards,



Amy Bower





Dr. Amy S. Bower

MS #21

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole, MA  02543  USA

Voice:  508-289-2781

Fax: 508-457-2181

Email:  abower at whoi.edu

Skype:  amy.bower1

www:   http://www.whoi.edu/scientist/abower



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