I visited Thailand in October 2015. It was a badly needed holiday. I spent most of my time in Phuket.
Some of the subsequent photographs may give you the impression that Phuket consists only of electric poles or I have a fascination with electric poles. The former is not the case and I am fascinated by technology which is significantly more than electric poles. Electric poles formed interesting shapes as I zoomed past them in a rented mini van.
As for the rest of the images on this blog, I took them while wearing the the vOICe. I was using a prototype of the vOICe rendered on the raspberry pi. See After-sight unit 1 for details.
Finally, thanks to my cousins Janak and Suhani for a fantastic holiday and image descriptions
These images relate to the Big Buddha.One warning, be careful around the base of the temple as there are several dogs in the vvasinity. They did not appear to be aggressive when I was there but there were enough of them to make me uneasy. They were everywhere especially where you have to take off your shoes. In addition, if you have sensitive ears, be warned about the fireworks that are let off every evening or so I am told< Electric poles with wires, and on the right side, a white sign with red lettering and a big red arrow pointing to the left. The arrow says Big Buddha.[/caption] The approach to the Big Buddha shrine. Red and white barricades, a road, and trees. On the left, you can see a red arrow with white lettering (in Thai). A view of the parking lot (on the left). A clump of trees on the right. View of the hills from a vantage point near the entrance of the Big Buddha structure. Big Buddha viewed from below View of the paved floor directly beneath the vantage point. A large bronze bell worth ringing
We now come to the beech. Phuket is crowded and you should read the tourist literature before venturing on to them. To paraphrase the literature, keep your sense of humor handy. We will start with some street scenes.
Phuket street corner with an electric poll. Part of the street and parked cars are visible on the left. View of an old building with a protruding thatched roof above the sidewalk on the right side of the photo. Electric pole with wires running across the middle of the photo. Sky in the background and a low building in The front part of a white truck. Clouds and electricity poles and wires in the background. The front of a seafood restaurant in Phuket. Seafood displayed on ice. The signs say “rock lobster,” “fish” and “phuket lobster.” A water tank with large fish is visible behind the seafood display.
We ran the gontlet of Bangla Road and emerged in an oasis of calm namely the Wine Connection. The thing with Bangla road is to keep moving. Show that you have a purpose and maintain high situational awareness. This is difficult to do due to the cacophony created by all the outside bars and restaurants. No taking pictures unless you are prepared to be propositioned. This is one place where the crowd will not leave you alone.
The Wine Connection restaurant. Our friendly server is setting cutlery on the table. Glass bubble chandeliers are visible behind him. A bar with several wine bottles suspended on a stand is also visible. Our server’s head and shoulders are visible but the focus is on the three glass bubble chandeliers which are clearly visible. A clear photo which captures the bar with the wine bottle display and beer dispensers on the bar table. The funky glass chandeliers are seen hanging above the bar. IMG_952
White wine bottles placed in wooden cubby holes in the Wine Connection cellar. Red and black price tags. A photo of bottles of Floreffe, a Belgian beer, displayed on a glass shelf. The price (160 Baht) is displayed. A photograph of Marriott Mai Khao taken from our room balcony. More palm trees against a blue sky.
Photograph of Marriott Mai Khao yoga room taken from our room balcony. The roof of the yoga room is visible. The yoga room is a stilt structure standing in the middle of a small pond. You need to walk across a small bridge, also visible in the photograph, to reach the yoga room. The pond has lots of palm trees around it. Marriott Mai Khao from our room balcony. You can see lots of palm trees, the roof-top of the main restaurant, and a few of the resort villas in the distance.
The drive-way of the Marriott Mai Khao. On the left, a clump of palm trees. On the right in the distance, a welcome sign to the Marriott Mai Khao. The area just outside the reception of the Marriott Mai Khao. You can see the paved path leading upto the reception and a small fountainThe entrance to Turtle Village. On your right you can see the welcome sign to Turtle Village. On your left you can see the road that ultimately takes you to the JW Marriott. Turtle Village, a two- storey shopping and restaurant complex right outside the Marriott Mai Khao. Photo taken from the buggy while driving to JW Marriott. The road is lined with trees on either side, and you can see two cars driving in the opposite direction. Photo of the drive way leading up to the JW Marriott reception. The drive-way is cobbled. You can see a clump of palms in the distance, and on your right you can see stone coloured urns, which are lit up at night.
I have vague memories of modeling with clay in grade 1 but I had not touched clay after that.
The interesting thing about clay modeling is that you work in 3 dimensions. I thought it would be easy to produce what I imagined but that was not the case. For example, I was instructed to make a mask. How do I make a nose? I should have put clay around my own nose and but I thought of that trick once the mask was complete.
We used ceramic clay instead of terracotta clay.
My biggest challenge came in shaping the clay. I would damage the slab when I tried engraving. The answer was to use cooky cutters to get the shape I wanted.
My biggest surprise was the shape of the sphere. For the shapes I made, the first thing that I was instructed to do was to form a sphere with the clay. I then took a rolling pin and flattened the ball. Once that was done, I could begin shaping. I mentioned this to my father who pointed out that the sphere is the symbol for infinity.
Another thing to be aware of was the pressure. If I put too much, the clay would begin to disintegrate. If it was too little, the clay would stay as is.
My thanks to Aparna Choudhrie, founder of the Clay Company for her incite on design. I had asked her how should I decide what shape I want in a design. Her answer was that “each shape should tell a story.” This was just the right starting point for my writer self. I can now begin to think of creating shapes that have meaning without my brain freezing on fractals, perspective, solid geometry etc.
As always, special thanks to the volunteers from The Clay Company and from Planet Abled. The class would not have been the same without you.
Universal design is not something one would usually associate with dating events. However, the event (The VIBE – Delhi) conducted by Footloose No More was a superb example of how things can be made inclusive for everyone. I am not going to go into the challenges of online dating and the extreme focus on pixels on many dating websites. Footloose is different since the website is an adjunct to their offline events. Most of the Footloose events are unstructured where you walk up to the person of choice and start talking. If you are blind, then there are some unique problems with this format.
Finding someone to talk to. Yes, you do get introduced like everyone else but people drift in and detecting them is almost impossible.
Finding the next person to talk to. So, you finish talking to one woman but how do you identify the next one? The objective is to meet as many new people as possible. People cluster into groups so yes, you can look for chattering groups but many participants sit in a quiet corner so no audio. Yes, you can ask the organizer but the organizer does not know who all you have spoken too.
Irrespective of disability, people complain that they did not meet everyone.
The Footloose solution is elegant. The women are seated while the men get five minutes with each woman. They move from person-to-person. There is a whistle after every 5 minutes. Once everyone has met everyone else, the event returns to its original unstructured format. You talk to everyone, get a chance to exchange contact information if desired and then are free.
Tips
Exchange contact information in the fourth minute of the interaction else you will have to scramble to enter it once the whistle has blown. You do not want to keep your fellow men waiting.
Stay relaxed. Do not look at your watch. Time keeping is the organizer’s responsibility.
I use a combination of blindsquare and Google maps and or Navigon for navigation. My work flow is to search for a place in blindsquare and then launch Google Maps and or Navigon for routing. The trouble is that there have been times when I have not found a place on blindsquare or the place has been wrongly marked. This is not blindsquare’s fault because it uses foursquare. Yes I know, croud sourced navigation but it works well in most cases. The operative word is most. My last experience converted a 20 minute journey to a 2 hour ordeal because of an error on foursquare. I wrote to blindsquare support and asked for help.
The following solution has been given by Mr.. Ilkka Pirttimaa
A friend and I spent two days in Rishikesh. Most people go to Rishikesh either for rafting or to visit the several temples in that city. It is also the launch point for treks into the Himalayas. I went for photography. I had done my trekking last year. Rishikesh does not have a railway station. I took the train up till Haridwar. I took the following photographs out of the window of the taxi. I was playing tourist. I would look out of the window and quickly snap the scene as long as it looked interesting. I was using the vOICe as usual. Interesting for me was any scene with a lot of shapes and plenty of light. I did not have time for analysis. I would glance out the window, bring my iPhone 5 to eye level and click. In some cases, I did take photographs at different angles. I did so in 2 cases. In the first case, if a scene was interesting I wanted to capture it at different aspects. If a scene was boring, that is, very few shapes, then I wanted to highlight a new dimension of that scene.
We stayed at a resort called the Glass House. It is a property with beautiful views. The trouble is that a lot of people come there and it is hard to get away from them as you will see in the photographs related to the Glass House.
This picture captures a quaint little building standing under a large tree in the corner of a main road and a smaller by-lane most probably in an Indian village. The words written in Hindi on the top tower like part of the structure is not clear and so not legible. The day is bright and sunny. The tarred road not very wide is dusty and the shadows of thick electric lines [most probably] and the tree lend shade to the right hand part of it on the picture. Beyond it there is a cemented open courtyard and then this tiny square building painted in brick red color, inside low walls also in the same color. The walls have wire meshing on top making it much taller but giving visibility. A small white painted gate in this wall which leads into the building is open in the front and has an orange and white painted archway in the shape of a banyan leaf over it. A plantain tree and some plants are seen outside the mesh on the right of the gate. There are other bushes and plants inside the meshed walls on the left too. Across the tiny inside- courtyard, the door of the little building is open too and has there two long windows on either side. It has a saffron flag flying on the archway. It looks like an “aashram” a retreat for sages and pilgrims. There is a building which looks like some kind of small office on the left of the structure under the tree and a white car is parked in front of it facing the road. There is another car parked in a building on the left across the by-lane. A large cream colored house is seen behind the retreat and the tree, in the dim light of the tree shade. Above and beyond the by-lane and the building to the left of the retreat a patch of blue sky with bright white clouds and the purplish blue hills on the horizon are visible. This eclectic mix of spirituality, the quiet of a village, the modern amenities like cars and electricity, the big house and the tiny offices all leave one with an emotion of wonder at the achievement of man as well as his roots in spirituality. This is a commercial area of a city or town. Prominent in the background is a three story apartment building with shops on the ground floor. We see the shop signs – Chawla Handloom, Chawla Travels and Chawla Fast Food. A beach umbrella in front of the fast food restaurant tells us outside seating is likely available. There are several people in the street scene, most prominent is a man seated in the driver’s seat of a small blue bus that appears to be a sort of taxi. He’s waiting behind another similar vehicle, so most likely this is a queue of taxis waiting for pickups. The man appears relaxed and taking a chance to rest in between riders. He has on a long sleeved white shirt and khaki pants. Two young girls are walking in front of the shops. It seems like a hot day, but the man in the blue bus has on a long sleeved shirt. The apartment building in the background is interesting. We can see balconies for the various apartments on the second and third floors but no one is around. There are air conditioners and wires going every which way. The second floor of the building is painted pink, and has some type of foreign script (Hindi probably) writing on it. You do not want to be caught in the situation depicted in this photo where the traffic jam appears to have stalled the commuters for hours on end. The upper third of the image is primarily dark black capturing the mood of the passengers and drivers alike with places to go and things to do. The traffic itself might be emerging from an old tunnel, with all its accompanying paraphernalia, or a work zone where cars are often rerouted. Toward the lower right of the photo is the most recognizable of the vehicles. A white square built ambulance is struggling forward. The style of the frame of the cab is quite angular like a jeep or other work vehicle. A strong and reliable motor would be required for medical transport and equipment. Only a bit of the transport compartment behind the cab can be seen; just enough to notice the red strobe lights flashing across its upper edge. The right front seat window can be clearly seen through the windshield. The occupant’s door is likely open so that the trained personnel could move through the stalled traffic to assist disfurnished commuters holding things up. The image itself is a bit out of focus which adds to the feeling of powerlessness. In the left corner it appears that a tail assembly of another white car seems to be leaving the scene. Between the two vehicles there is some style of traffic cone, warning the already stopped cars to slow down presumably. Other indistinct signs in red and yellow identify curbside retail locations indistinctly. This is a picture of trucks parked in front of billboards. One of the billboards is advertising a furniture company that is having a sale. The background of the sign is white. There is a large green house shaped area with white and yellow writing. This area is outlined in red. The words “Sale” and “40%” are in large red letters at the top of the sign, on the white part. At the bottom white part, is writing in dark blue. The writing is in English. There is another billboard next to this one, to the right of the picture. It appears to be old and the paint is peeling. It shows what appears to be a chief. His hand shows and he is holding what may be a stand of spaghetti. It has some strange looking letter type characters along part of the top. One part of this billboard has been painted over in blue and there are some upside down English letters. There is also something under this writing, but it is not clear what it is. The trucks are mini trucks and are all painted blue. There are no doors on the ones that The door area shows. The truck to the far left of the picture also has a large cut out area in the side. There is something pink that can be seen in the floor of this truck. It looks almost like insulation. The truck to the far right in the picture has a luggage rack on top. All the trucks have cattle guard type bumper protections made out of pipe that cover the front of the body of the trucks. These are black and there is a middle section with white tips. There are orange tags with black lettering located on the right front just under the windshield of each truck. The truck to the far left has a yellow decal on the window just above he tag. The truck in the middle is smaller than the other two and has a line of three red decals running down the center of the windshield. The truck to the far right has one red decal at the top center of the windshield. The area where the trucks are sitting looks to be dirt. There are power lines running above the billboards. The sky is blue and there are some light clouds in the sky. Mountains can be seen in the background. This gives the feeling of an abandoned area. “The predominant feature in this scene is a large elm tree with about ten large limbs branching out from the trunk. The trunk is not visible because the foreground of the scene has a structure extending across the lower part of the entire scene. The structure is made of wood and extends about ten feet above the ground. The ground is not visible. The structure is divided by vertical wooden beams spaced at about ten foot intervals. Between these beams there is a yellow piece of wood that is about ten feet by ten feet. A circle has been cut out of each yellow piece of wood that is about one foot wide. The center of the yellow piece of wood is held up by a two by eight that is mounted from the outside of the cutout space and is horizontal through the center of circular piece of yellow wood. The paint is old and faded. The top of the structure is flat and is bounded by a railing that is metal. The railing consists of vertical metal poles about three feet tall and spaced at about three feet intervals. The poles are connected by semi-circles of metal that begin at the base of each pole and arc past one pole and terminate at the base of the next pole. The tree is heavily limbed and an agile 12 year old boy could move completely around in the tree at least 15 feet from the center without taking a serious risk. There is the image of a structure in the tree that seems, at first glance, to be a complex tree house that is mounted at a slight angle. However, upon further inspection, it is a reflection, or a ghost image from some other source. It is about 18 feet wide. It has a large cardboard box on the lower end which is one the left. Adjacent to the box there is a wooden furniture piece that looks like the headboard of a twin bed. The remainder of the “”tree house”” is the grey floor and a diagonal grey piece projecting up from the floor and ending a few feet above the floor on the right. There is a ray of sunshine coming through the tree. The entire scene gives the impression of a place that once had a more significant purpose and meaning. The man-made additions to the scene have faded in their appearance and their relevance, but the tree has grown to be mighty and majestic.” This photograph is dominated by the lower half as far as coverage space is concerned. The lower half shows a good number of vehicles like cars, public transport vehicles etc. standing or moving. There are also buildings and shopping structures that are visible. There are one or two persons that are seen inside the public transport vehicles. The lower half is bustling with urban hustle, which goes to show that the snap was taken in the middle of a busy approach road to a town or city. The upper half of the snap is dominated by nature as explained above. An additional aspect of the snap is the trees that line up the left and right corners of the photograph. These trees are tall and captured in dark shadows due to light conditions. However there are no other vegetation signs within this urban patch. The picture shows a high mountainside covered in lush green trees with a single tree in focus in the foreground. Then you realize it is the picture of a hairpin bend seen in parts through the trees as there is a lone white car visible on the foot of the mountains in the distance. We are on this side of the hairpin bend with may be a deep ravine in between as the tops of a few trees are seen here. Just close to us can be seen the roadside boundary markings, two stones painted white with a red streak running through the middle, looking similar to milestones. These mark the right hand side of the road proceeding towards the hairpin bend which is not visible; only a bit of the road further up is seen where the car is seen going uphill. A single hardy tree is seen close to the boundary stone on the right edge of the picture. It is a medium sized tree only a bit thicker than the red and white stone near it. It has a straight trunk and only a few branches in the lower reaches whereas there are many short branches with dark green thick foliage on top. The tree top is silhouetted against a clear blue and white sky, a little further right of the outline of the mountain. It has a deep purplish blue hill as a backdrop too against the lower trunk. The blue hills are far away behind and to the right of the mountain. The road the car is proceeding along ends in another bend, rounding off that mountain, also to reveal the mountains behind, blue and far away. The photograph can be viewed in largely three parts, which are, upper, middle and bottom parts. The upper part of the photograph indicates that the snap has been taken in broad day light. The sky is entirely resplendent with the brightness of the day time sun. The sky is stylishly blue and is dotted with lovely wisps of white clouds that are floating effortlessly. Sky seems to be triangular shaped given that a full mountain valley, between the two mountains, is captured by the photograph. The snaps of valleys are panoramic because they reveal the entire landscape in one go and it is rather difficult to capture a whole valley view neatly. This snap is perfectly neat. The middle part of the photograph covers two grand hills. Both hills are forested and are rich green in color due to the presence of several forest trees, plants and foliage. One hill is farther away from the view while the other is faced right to the eye of the camera. There are several lush green trees which are tall and healthy and one can see the entire side of one of the hills covered with grass. The bottom part of the picture reveals a long and winding hill road with a moving vehicle on the far end of the road. At least one whole bend of this hill road is covered by this snap. This photograph is that of a road which appears to be winding through some beautifully forested hills. The road, itself, is a concrete road but showing signs of wear and tear as in the portion captured by the photograph. The road has its raw end towards hill slopes with prominent mud and boulder like stones liberally strewn across. There is a broken stone seat with debris heaped around it. In addition, there is a clear fluorescent light which would be activated at night. In the far left of the picture, to the middle ground, is a tree limb that is covered with leaves. Behind the tree limb can be seen mountains, the tallest one is appearing to be almost blue, In the forefront of the picture is a body of water. The surface is rippled, indicating the wind is blowing. On the far bank is what appears to be a little bit of snow in a couple of places. The bank is low and is covered in rocks. There is a semi-cleared area that has grass growing on it before the tree line. The trees are thick and not showing independently. There is also a taller mountain on the right side of the picture. The sky is full of clouds and some of them look a little gray. This picture appears to have been taken in the afternoon. The blue of the sky is a smoky blue color. This selection of boulders focuses on their uniqueness, and would make an interesting picture puzzle with its monochromatic blue hue. The play of the light on the different shapes suggests that the sun is low in the sky where it can emphasize each rock’s distinguishing characteristics. Starting in the lower left three very dark boulders lurk in a shadow. Although they are similar in size and shape one is unique. Along an upper edge of the one closest to the camera, some mineral has caught the golden sunlight and is sending it back into space. A narrow band of beach sand separates this triad from the rocks to its right. Above these dark rocks is part of what is the largest boulder presented here. Its finish is quite smooth, like it had spent quite some time being polished and shaped in a fast moving river. It has no edges but the sunshine on the top reveals the layers and swirls that reveal this old rocks history to the viewer. It, too, has a sandy barrier visible around it. Two medium sized boulders are centered next to it. The upper one is quite black and light absorbing while the lower one is a brighter brown well-worn down specimen. On the sand around these two are smaller rocks of different colors and shapes. Just below the sandy right upper corner, there is a medium sized, light, smooth rock. Smoothed by water travel it is the rock that is nearest to white. Just to its lower left is the most unique of the collection. It is quite large, reflecting sun from its top. It’s totally waiting for its turn to run the rapids and get all its scoops and valleys polished off. Newly formed somehow, this craggy boulder displays its pits, crevasse and limestone origins for the camera to record. This shows an exquisitely beautiful piece of river bank made up of white sand like powdered sugar, studded with a few chunks of weather worn rocks. The center piece is a marvel, a small rock almost triangular in shape with the corners polished and rounded off; it is the color of butter with a slight brownish tinge and tiny crescent -like striations on it. It seems to radiate tinges of various shades. It seems to have the history of time etched on it. One realizes it must have taken thousands of years of rain, wind and flowing water to make it the wonder that it is today. If it were smaller anyone would want to add it to ones collections of shells from the beach or of lovely rocks from the wild. There are a few big flat rocks of a darker shade and in an almost dark grey color lying close to it. These are flatter and not so rounded off or polished, with a few angles and rough surfaces. The large blackish grey rock is half covered with the white sand and it looks like a miniature mountain powdered with the first snow. The other cream colored smaller stones too have character and add to the beauty of the shot. What one finds most interesting are the imprints of the soles of different sized shoes or sandals seen in the soft sand. The imprints are there on the sand and on the stones. A little square rock completely covered in sand looks like a lovely, large sugar-dusted cookie; it has many of these feet showing people having stepped on it. This is a scene of a river showing both the near shore and the far shore as well as the river itself. We see a rocky beach in the foreground, a river behind it, and behind the river the far shore. The picture is tilted to the left, making the river appear to flow uphill. On the far shore is a rocky beach and a heavily wooded area of trees. The river itself appears to be flowing rapidly from left to right. Our eyes are drawn to the near shore however, where we see a nice sandy beach area and many rocks of various colors and sizes. Someone has been on this beach! We can see boot tracks in the sand. The rocks on the near shore are interesting shapes and colors, some are very smooth and some are jagged. The colors range from a tan color, to slate color, to darker gray. We can’t see the sky at all but it doesn’t seem sunny at all, the picture is very gray overall. It’s a beautiful scene, but somehow the fact that the picture is tilted makes it seem less so. The picture would be better if it was straight. We wonder about the boot tracks. Probably from a man it seems based on the type of prints. What was he doing? Perhaps fishing, or maybe just exploring the area on a cloudy fall day. Maybe he is the one taking the picture, we can see what looks like it might be his shadow in the sand. Who knows?
The picture shows a raging river. We see the sandy and rocky shore near us on our side of the river. Then the river behind it. And behind the river the far shore. No one is present in the picture. Most prominent are the rocks on the near shore some are larger boulders and some are smaller stones like river rocks, very smooth from years of wear. The rocks nearer the water are covered with green moss, the others are various colors such as tan, slate and very dark gray. The rocks are sitting on a sandy beach. It’s hard to tell, but there may be footprints in the sand, either from people or animals or birds. Behind the rocky beach we see the river, which appears to be rapidly flowing from left to right. There are large rocks under the water and we see the water gushing over them on its course. Behind the river, we see the far shore. Right along the river the far shore is all rocks of similar dark gray color and fairly evenly distributed along the water. In the photo behind the far rocky shore we see a heavily wooded area of trees in leaf. The day seems cloudy but we can’t see the sky at all in the picture. Since the trees have their leaves, we assume it is summer or fall. It’s a beautiful scene but we are left wondering if anyone is around and who left the footprints in the sand. This is a picture of some big rocks on the sand. At the lower left corner is a large one that almost looks like petrified wood. Centered in the left is a smooth, oval shaped rock that has a light pattering of strips and a gray squiggle. Next to it is a small, flat, grayish colored rock. Just above the little rock, is a large triangle rock. At the lower right corner of this rock, almost buried in the sand, is just visible another rock. Just above the oval rock is a foot print in the sand and then a brownish rock. There is another small grayish one and a couple of large tan ones at the top of the picture. There is a small amount of gravel scattered among the larger rocks at the top of the picture. Sand, with shoe prints, take up the right half of the picture, starting just under one of the large tan rocks. In the lower right corner of the picture are the toes of a pair of black tennis shoes and just a tiny bit of a black pants leg. The sand is a grayish white color. There is what might be a slice of apple just a little past the right tennis shoe. There are several different style of sole prints on the sand, so several different people have been here. The different textures of the rocks are very interesting. There are mountains in the background, with the fog hanging over them! The sky is beautiful! The bright sunlight shows to the left of the picture with the sky turning a grayish purple starting at the upper center. The mountains in the far background are covered with fog. There is a mountain toward the left center ground that has trees growing on it. In front of this mountain is a thick stand of trees. Then there is an open area that goes almost all the way across the picture and meets a mountain on the right side. The end of a tree branch shows in the upper right corner of the picture. The open area has some grass growing, not a lot of sand, and some rocks show. Through the center of the picture, from just above middle right to lower left runs a river. The river has little waves and even some baby white caps on it. At the closest bank there are large rocks that jut out into the river in the center of the picture. There are some weeds growing out of the rocks. The bank in the foreground is made up of mostly rocks and gravel. Between where the camera is and the bank, is a pipe fence with a concrete post. The fence is two pipes painted blue. The concrete is not painted. The lower right corner of the picture shows some pavement, so this probably is taken at a look out point somewhere in the mountains.
Note
I took the images showing rivers and boulders at the Glass House.
Thanks to Describe! a service run by Chris Nestrud for image descriptions.
This post comes about as a part of a conversation I am having with Olena Markaryan author of the Bionic eyes and arms blog.
Getting visual perception late in life is challenging. One of the hardest concepts I have had to grasp is how 2-dimentional things on paper relate to 3-dimentional objects in the real world.
For example, if I see the drawing of a table and feel the same table I will not be able to tell that the table in the drawing is the same as the one I am feeling.
Yes, vision and touch are different senses but sighted people are able to bridge this 2d-3d gap probably because they have had long experience of such things. The brain is an inference engine and has had plenty of time to learn how to do this.
I need to backtrack a bit and tell you that I got my house remodeled in 2011. Version one was broken down and version two was constructed. I had looked at the architectural plans of the to be built house using the vOICe. One of the features that stood out was the snake like staircase.
Mind you the stairs are not snakelike at all when I walk on them but that is the impression I got when looking at their drawing.
The penny dropped for me the day before yesterday when I was walking down the stairs. I was tilting my head in all directions to get an idea of how the stairs looked when viewed at different angles. When I looked at themn sideways, I perceived the same pattern that I did in the autocad drawing.
I need to explore this more. I do not know how this happened. I guess that I had the same perspective as I did with the drawing so that may have helpped but it is exciting. I had seen the drawing about four years ago and remembered the staircase.
I recently participated in a workshop relating to accessibility of arts and culture with reference to museums. This was conducted at the National Museum under the auspices of UNESCO. The idea behind the workshop was to explore what could be done to make art accessible to the blind. The museum had taken a number of steps to make objects accessible. A number of presenters also covered how Museum accessibility is being handled globally. The primary ways it is being done appear to be as follows.
The use of audio descriptions along with associated broadcast technology.
The creation of 3-D models of objects that are on display.
The use of tactile graphics to display paintings.
All the above methods are time and labor intensive. Moreover, there are significant constraints in the application of these methods. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of space. There is insufficient space to store the 3-D representation of the models. Moreover, many of the 3-d models that have been created are not durable. Museums change their displays frequently which involves changing the audio descriptions of models as well.
Several solutions were proposed to handle these problems. For example, it was suggested that curators decide which models best tell the story of the collection and only translate those into tactile representations. The issue of durability could be addressed by using better material to make the 3-D representations.
The other set of challenges that museums have to face relate to logistics. In most cases, disabled visitors need to book an appointment in advance before visiting a museum. This allows museum staff to get things organized and to ensure the best possible experience for their disabled patrons.
As a disabled consumer, I foresee several issues with these accommodations. Do not get me wrong, they are nice and the intentions behind them are good. They even work. However, the problems I have are as follows.
I want the right to be disorganized. Every disabled person is not a good planner. Moreover, the disabled person should have the ability to walk into the museum and enjoy its exhibits without the additional step of planning.
There are very few audio described items and even fewer tactile representations.
These facilities are available only at certain museums.
Enter the vOICe
The vOICe is a generic solution that converts images to sound. All it needs is a camera and some kind of computing device to run. It can be run as a mobile phone application or as a program running on a laptop or desktop computer. It is image agnostic and can translate images of any complexity and at any resolution. The interpretation of these images is left to the user.
As I’ve stated in other posts on this blog, the vOICe gives the user a direct sensation of shape without any interpretation.
To summarize, the vOICe combines audio and tactile representations into a single modality. There is no manual effort required in the preparation of audio descriptions or tactile representations. This also solves the problem of space. There is no need to maintain multiple representations of an item.
One of the criticisms that has been often levelled at the vOICe is its steep learning curve. There is no denying that interpreting soundscape’s needs to be learnt. It does take time and effort to be able to do this effectively. However, in a museum, there are textual labels that already exist explaining what items are in a given display. These usually contain enough information for the blind patron to get a good idea of what he or she is looking at.
The vOICe facilitates true universal accessibility. All it needs to function effectively is good lighting, clearly printed text labels (that is more a user requirement) and clean displays. These incidentally are requirements for all patrons irrespective of their level of ability.
It is possible to record the sound skips from the vOICe and incorporate them into digital media presentations. This would allow people who are unable to access the museum physically to still enjoy the exhibits. Lastly, this will allow curators to sleep easier because no one will have to “touch” their precious collections!
Acknowledgements
To the Blind with Camera foundation for giving me the opportunity to present about the vOICe and to participate in the workshop
To the National Museum and UNESCO for being fantastic hosts.
To Saksham for making the Santhal collection accessible.
Electric poles with wires, and on the right side, a white sign with red lettering and a big red arrow pointing to the left. The arrow says Big Buddha.[/caption]
