[Tactile-Talk] Comparison between graphiti and Monarch

Wed Aug 28 17:03:28 UTC 2024

I will  not go deep into this but I can clarify a misconception.   The Monarch has 96 by 40 dots and they are the same cells as the Dot displays.  They have an up and a down. They have a rubber cover over the cells that keep them from getting dust in the mechanics.  You can not have your hands on it as it refreshes.  It does not have a separate line of braille but the separation from pin to pin center is 2.6 mm.   The graphiti has a 60 by 40 set of pins.  They have 5 different heights from 0 to 2 MM you can have your hands on it as it refreshes.   The pin to pin center is 4 mm. There are two current Graphiti’s.  One is the Graphiti you saw in 2019 and has just the 60 by 40 panel.  The other is the Graphiti Plus that has the 60 by 40 panel and a line of 40 cells below it the same type cells as the Orbit 40.   They also now have the two slates the 5/20 and the 3/40 as well which can be considered a slight tactile display because one has 5 lines of 20 and one has 3 lines of 40 but they have  large separations between the lines like Canute..  For those who don’t know the Canute.  It is a 9 line braille display that also can be considered a tactile display its cells are totally different and they rotate like old spinning adding machines. As they spin the cells are created from two sides of Octagonal rotating discs.  Both the slates and the canutes have at least a line separating each row of cells.  We should also mention there are as many as 60 companies working on technologies like this the ones that already have released items other than the ones I have mentioned are the Dot and the metech displays. There are also the Holy braille and the Kadence.  But I won’t go into all that.

From: Tactile-Talk <tactile-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Rich Caloggero via Tactile-Talk
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2024 11:46 AM
To: 'Tactile Talk for the discussion of the display and use of graphics on refreshable Braille platforms' <tactile-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Rich Caloggero <rjc at mit.edu>
Subject: [Tactile-Talk] Comparison between graphiti and Monarch

I got a demo of the Graphiti in 2019 when I believe it was still a prototype. However, I've not seen or heard a clear description of the Monarch. So, my question: how do these two devices compare?

>From what little I know, the Monarch has both a tactile area, and a separate area containing discrete braille cells, somewhat like a typical single-line display, but multiple lines of same.  The graphiti has one single display, which can display graphics, and braille using font technology similar to how visual displays work. To me, the graphiti seems like a much better solution because it works just like a visual display, and looks like one (albeit it very low resolution) to the host computer.  WHen I checked out the graphiti, I did notice that the braille font had odd spacing between the dots that made it a bit difficult to read. I was told that this was because I was looking at version 1 of the display, and that the next version would have higher resolution, which would decrease the spacing between the dots, and thus make a more normal feeling braille font.

Would love to hear other's thought ... 

-- Rich

On 8/27/2024 8:29 PM, kperry at blinksoft.com <mailto:kperry at blinksoft.com>  wrote:

The first of these videos is a 15 minute brochure from Orbit but the rest I did when were working on it.  I was the first Blind person to use the Graphiti with a Microscope.  I even used it with growing fungus in one of my presentations.  The one here is with a pre-prepared slide.  In the videos I made I tried to talk through them so they would be good for blind and visual. Of course the best way to see the graphiti is by touch.  I unfortunately do not have a set of videos like this for the Monarch because I am less a Project lead on that and more just a app developer and tester.

This first 15-minute video is a video brochure the CEO of Orbit made using some of the following videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSsoIomrjF0

These other videos I made and some of them are used in the above video, but these show how I have done it.  So, you can see that a blind guy did them.   I will mention I wrote the Tetris game shown here and the library for Graphiti all in python.

Compound Stereo Microscope
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6b4oyzci7tuqisl/MVI_0093.MP4?dl=0

Note
After I made that video.  We realized that I didn't have it zoomed all the way out.  You can get it entirely on one screen but I had enlarged it and changed the filter so I could look at the regions better.

Orion TI-84 Plus
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2jgm5mlktx90k8/MVI_0094.MP4?dl=0

Watching a video
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rchodldswyzvato/Eclipse-slower.MP4?dl=0

Turtle Graphics
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8axbzz59k25zxx/MVI_0099.MP4?dl=0

Drawing with Graphiti
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ds2mixkcvo9fsj4/MVI_0101.MP4?dl=0

NVDA Plugin (NVDA is a free screen reader for Windows written in python)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eh0yg725291hy0a/NVDA-plugin.MP4?dl=0

OpenScad 3D design for use with 3D printing
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4wia6vwktgipmex/OpenSCAD%20with%20Orion%20Graphiti%2020181012.mp4?dl=0

Tetris

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tos1oy4i8rsp2d0/tetrus.MP4?dl=0

-- 
Rich Caloggero
Accessibility Specialist
Disability and Access Services
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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