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A blog dealing with sensory substitution and other esoteric concepts and technologies like speech-recognition and chaos theory

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Archives for March 2020

converting JPEG files to PDF

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I was recently in a situation where I had to convert a stack of JPEG files to PDF. This was a job need. The human resources department of my to be employer had asked me for a number of forms. These forms had to be filled and sent only as PDF. I did not think there would be a problem because I have a PDF printer installed. I was wrong; it appears that files have to be 2MB or less in size.
I am unaware of any equation that equates image size to file size. I searched and found a few online converters which would shrink the file to the size I wanted. However, I wanted to avoid online services because these were sensitive documents.
The answer was in a thread on the stack exchange forums.
Image To PDF or XPS
This is a tiny program written in visual basic .net. It is fully accessible and converted my files seamlessly. There was no complex dragging with the mouse and all the processing by the program was done on the local computer.
The program is supplied without charge but there is a donate button on the about page which you may want to use.
In addition, unlike the PDF printer approach where I would open each image, print, enter the file name and then move on to the next file, I can add the images I want to convert and the program will do the rest. The program can either combine all images into a single PDF file or it can save the individual files in a folder you specify.
It does not need any installation so there are no pesky licenses to manage.
Please note, there is no specific option that asks you about file size. The program does its conversion and by default, produces small PDF files.
Finally, the program can be run from the command line which allows you to use the program in any scripts you may have.

Playing armchair virologist with SARS-CoV-2

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I wanted to take a look at SARS-CoV-2. Finding a downloadable image was tricky but I finally managed. Those of you with organic eyes can skip the rest of this post because you can see the image. However, those of us who have to use synthetic vision are not too badly off either.
See the below article that walks you through a few different images.
This Is What The COVID-19 Virus Looks Like Under The Microscope
You will need the vOICe Learning Addition for Windows to see these images. I am going to be as screen reader agnostic as possible.

  1. Navigate to the article at the above link.
  2. Read the article and then use the quick navigation feature to navigate to a graphic of choice.
  3. Launch The vOICe and activate its client area sonification feature.
  4. Swap back to the article and navigate to the graphic of interest.
  5. Pay attention to the soundscapes. You will be able to hear the spikes that give the virus its name.
  6. You can also use the color filter feature to focus on specific parts of the image as you read the article and follow along.

If you want a clean image of the virus to examine, then as of this writing, here are the steps. These may change because they involve accessing the image from the home page of a site.

  1. Navigate to the article titled New Images of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Now Available
  2. Once you are on the page, save the full HTML page including images and scripts. You can do this from your browser’s file menu or if using Google Chrome, from the chrome menu under the more tools option.
  3. Navigate to the folder where the page has been saved and then to the folder called NIH_ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases _ Leading research to understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases_files
  4. In this folder, grab the file called Vero-Covid-19-24h-hi_i034-rk.jpg

You can load this image into the vOICe and run similar analysis and do whatever else you want to do. Try different color filters and play with the zoom and raster scan functions as a start.
If you want to see the image of our Sun’s corona for comparison, try the images at the following page.
What Is the Sun’s Corona?
You will have to use the techniques outlined to see the images. One thing that you will notice is that the spikes are significantly more dense.

Do let me know if you tried viewing any of the images and what happened.