Development of intuitive haptic interfaces for blind people...genitally blind people have...
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Development of intuitive haptic interfaces for blind people Joanna Roczniak AGH University of Science and Technology al. Mickiewicza 30 30-059 Krakow, POLAND [email protected] Bipin Indurkhya, PhD Supervisor AGH University of Science and Technology al. Mickiewicza 30 30-059 Krakow, POLAND [email protected] Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. Abstract In this project, ultrasounds technology is used to build an application dedicated to blind and visually impaired people. The tool would enable them to explore haptically a dynam- ically generated structure representing the AGH University campus map. It would give them information about spatial arrangements of buildings and landmarks which are im- portant for navigation.[1] By ultrasound feedback, visually impaired users will be able to control a map, feel the land- marks and, with supporting component like audio feedback, get all relevant information about buildings, roads, etc. Author Keywords ultrasounds; blind people; tactical maps; haptics perception ACM Classification Keywords Human-centered computing~Haptic devices Human-centered computing~Accessibility Introduction This is work in progress. The current application enables one to feel and distinguish at the same time three points in the mid-air. A Unity3D application has been built to dy- namically generate the AGH map in 3D. The ultrasounds generate touchable control points when the hand meets an obstacle on a map. To generate an up-to-date map, the ap- plication uses OpenStreetMap resources with MapBox unity
Transcript of Development of intuitive haptic interfaces for blind people...genitally blind people have...
Development of intuitive hapticinterfaces for blind people
Joanna RoczniakAGH Universityof Science and Technologyal. Mickiewicza 3030-059 Krakow, [email protected]
Bipin Indurkhya, PhDSupervisorAGH University of Science andTechnologyal. Mickiewicza 3030-059 Krakow, [email protected]
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citationon the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACMmust be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish,to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or afee. Request permissions from [email protected].
AbstractIn this project, ultrasounds technology is used to build anapplication dedicated to blind and visually impaired people.The tool would enable them to explore haptically a dynam-ically generated structure representing the AGH Universitycampus map. It would give them information about spatialarrangements of buildings and landmarks which are im-portant for navigation.[1] By ultrasound feedback, visuallyimpaired users will be able to control a map, feel the land-marks and, with supporting component like audio feedback,get all relevant information about buildings, roads, etc.
Author Keywordsultrasounds; blind people; tactical maps; haptics perception
ACM Classification KeywordsHuman-centered computing~Haptic devicesHuman-centered computing~Accessibility
IntroductionThis is work in progress. The current application enablesone to feel and distinguish at the same time three pointsin the mid-air. A Unity3D application has been built to dy-namically generate the AGH map in 3D. The ultrasoundsgenerate touchable control points when the hand meets anobstacle on a map. To generate an up-to-date map, the ap-plication uses OpenStreetMap resources with MapBox unity
Figure 1: A prototype of a haptical map.
package. MapBox allows putting layers on a map to createa 3D environment. However in the current version, userscan move around the map using only a keyboard.
Developing intuitively recognizable sensationsThe next milestones of the project include adding a gesture-based navigation facility and audio feedback. Appropriateultrasound feedback would be revealed by gestures de-tected by Leap Motion. In this project, potential suggestionsfor three haptic and recognizable patterns are included:
• Launching audio feedback: tapping a point in the mid-air, achieved by increasing the intensity and loweringthe height of a control point.
• Moving around a surface:
– horizontally - using an index finger to feel aforcefield, which could then be pushed left orright;
– vertically - using an index finger to feel a force-field, which could then be pushed left or right upor down.
• Zooming on a surface:
– in - grasping all fingers together, filling a smallcircle; when the fingers are widened the open-ing sensation will be launched;
– out - spreading the fingers: the opening sensa-tion will be launched.
Adapting ultrasound feedback to the personal abil-ities of haptic perceptionAfter several tests with blind and visually impaired peoplefrom the University Computer Centre at AGH and from TheSchool for the Blind Children, Tynicka Street, Krakow, wehave observed that people have differences in their hapticperception. According to the neuroscience research, con-genitally blind people have accelerated haptic perceptionprocessing than sighted humans. Consequently, the futureresearch should also include the adjustment of haptic feed-back to personal abilities of every person.
ConclusionThe described work is targeted at visually impaired people,but eventually everyone will be able to use a haptical map.To control navigation, several intuitive haptic patterns wereproposed. Furthermore, to improve the personal perceptionof the ultrasound feedback additional research areas wereidentified for the future.
REFERENCES1. Anke M. Brock, Delphine Picard, and Christophe
Jouffrais. 2013. Interactive maps for visually impairedpeople design, usability and spatial cognition. s.n.
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