Rehabilitation Engineering DivisionDepartment for Design Sciences

Haptic Line-drawings for Blind Persons

Calle Sjöström

Presentation Outline

• Haptic technology• Three application areas

– Mathematical graphs– Line drawings– Maps and floor plans

• Results and conclusions

The Haptics Group at Certec• Was an acronym: Center for Rehabilitation Technology• The Rehabilitation Engineering Division• Part of the Department of Design Sciences,

Lund Institute of Technology,Lund University, Sweden

• Have been working with haptic programs and interfaces for blind people since 1995.

• http://www.certec.lth.se/haptics

Computer Access for Blind People

• There are good ways to access text– Braille display– Speech synthesis

• Graphics is hard to access• We want to address that problem –

haptic technology is one way

Haptic Technology

• Touch interaction– Based on finger/hand

movements and feedbackvia the sense of touch

The PHANToM

• fromSensAbleTechnologies

Aims of This Study

• Haptic mathematical graphs –– Can these tools help a blind person understand

scientific phenomena?

• Haptic line drawings –– Can they be understood by blind persons?

• Haptics maps and floor plans –– Can they be used for real life orientation?

• Parts of a bigger study, more tomorrow

Mathematical Graphs

• Ecological system simulation

• Possible to change the fertility of the herbivores

• Number of animals on the island plotted

Mathematical Graphs

Line Drawings

• Haptic relief• Identify object• Find parts

Line Drawings

Floor Plans

• Haptic relief– Walls and

thresholds

• Sound labels

Floor Plans IRL

Test User Group

• 11 persons in Sweden• 14 persons in Italy• All users are blind• Both children and adults (12-85 years)

Results – Mathematics

• All users could feel the curve• 78% could solve the ecological problem

Results – Line Drawings

• 62% could identify the first pic without help

• 33% could identify the second picwithout help

• 88/83% could find and comment on parts of the man/elephant once they knew what it was.

Results – Floor Plans

• 83% of the users could count the rooms and find a specific room without sound

• 6/7 (86%) of the users could find the treasure on the map. 5 of these could then go to the correct room IRL

Conclusions

• Haptic mathematics useful even for real learning situations

• Haptic line drawings feasible but difficult – context very important

• Haptic maps maps promising – many positive comments from the users

Thank You!

• Calle Sjöström• calle.sjostrom@certec.lth.se• http://www.certec.lth.se/haptics