Accessibility

A quick and dirty way to make tactile images

by Pranav · Apr 15, 2012

Those of you with tactile embossers would know how difficult it is to produce tactile images that are usable. Even if you have something like the tiger that supports variable dot height, you simply can’t take any ordinary image and send it to the printer. Yes, the image will be printed but what you will see is tactile mush.

You can get usable output but most approaches require human intervention. Automated methods are still under development.

I was trying to find a solution to this problem this afternoon. Most of my work is based on Prof Richard G Baldwin’s work in this area. I was trying to see if I could create usable tactile images without having to write any additional code. Yes, I am lazy. Thus far, what I have found is that you can use the sharpening affect in image editing programs such as irfan view to create quick and dirty tactile images. All you do is to open the image in an editor like irfan view, apply the sharpening filter or effect and then print the image.

I have tested this with a few samples and it has worked. I am not saying that this is the way create tactile images but it is one possible approach.

the Taj Mahal a not so wonderful wonder

by Pranav · Dec 19, 2011

On 18 December 2011, I paid a visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra. I was with my cousins and we had spent a pleasant 5 hours driving from Delhi to Agra. The first shock was the snaking security line. Good on them as far as the crowd control goes but why could they not have more ticket counters? Who were they protecting against? What were they protecting?

I was wearing the vOICe so I had my video glasses and netbook. I eventually reached the security check barrier. This was like a doorway. I was frisked and then asked to take off my backpack.

I could not do this since I was all wired up. I was lead to a table where an inspector of police heard my story. I explained the vOICe as an artificial eye.

We were then directed to an officer of the Archeological Survey of India. I had to wait near the security desk while my cousin went to meet with the official.

No argument worked. I had to remove the vOICe and leave it in the tender care of the security staff. The reasoning of the ASI officer was that there was an order by the Supreme Court forbidding laptops. There was no countering that but I am puzzled that the learned judges would allow mobile phones and not laptops? A mobile phone is a computer and can do much more than a laptop.

I did get some photographs with the camera and did use the mobile phone version of the vOICe for a bit but as of this writing, there is nothing that can give me the eye level perspective and the broad field of view like the video glasses with the fish-eye lens.

The high point of my visit came in the souvenir shop outside the Taj Mahal. The staff was welcoming and were happy to show me their tools and products. There is much use of colors so keep a color detector handy or use the color spectrum feature of the vOICe. The staff is very good about adjusting the lighting conditions in the shop to best show off things like stones that are supposed to glow at the time of the full moon. I was able to detect the bright point of light which were the glowing stones under a flashlight.

Tips for any visitors specially those wearing electronic aides.

1. Leave the aide at home or in the vehicle unless it resembles a mobile phone.

2. Do not visit on the weekend since it is very crowded.

3. Keep at least 3 hours for the entire exercise.

4. Hire a guide. Ours was invaluable since besides telling us interesting stories, he was able to minimize the time we spent in the visitor’s line. He knew the shortest routes to get from one point to another. Mind you, you do not have much scope for getting lost since given the crowd, you are almost boxed in.

5. Eat before entering the Taj Mahal since food is not permitted inside the complex.

controlling jaws for Windows through Dragon NaturallySpeaking using J say

by Pranav · Oct 18, 2011

this post is going to walk you through the steps of controlling jaws for Windows from Dragon naturally speaking. You cannot speak the keystrokes to control Jaws for Windows directly since the Jaws keyboard driver runs at a lower level than Dragon’s keyboard driver. There are two ways you can control jaws from Dragon.. One way is to use the com interface that Jaws provides. The second way is to call Jaws scripts. I am going to be showing the second way since I’m assuming that you have J-Say technology installed.

The first thing you need to do is to determine the name of the script you want to call. You can see the name of the script from the Jaws scripting manager or by looking at the Jaws keyboard manager. Once you have that information, you can begin writing your command. We will use the example of initiating a jaws tandem session. This is a globally defined jaws script and is not in the set of current J-Say commands. A jaws tandem session is initiated by calling the StartOrEndTandemSession script.
I am going to assume that the StartOrEndTandemSession script is installed and working.

1. Go to the desktop.
2. From the tools menu of dragon, invoke the “add new command” dialog. If you have dragon running, say “add command”.
3. Dictate or type a name and a description.
4. Make the command a global command as well as an advanced scripting command.
Note:
On my computer, the combo box to select the type of the command is not spoken automatically. You may have to use the Jaws read current line command to read the value that has been selected in the combo box.
5. Keep tabbing until you reach an edit area where you can type your script. 6. A set of begin and end statements will already be inserted for you. 7. Between them, enter the following line.
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,”StartOrEndTandemSession”
Note:
I do not know what MSGW1004 stands for but I suspect, after reading the help it is a dll name.

8. Now, activate the jaws cursor and click the save button. This is found at the bottom of the scripting edit area.

9. Assuming there are no errors, you will be back at the desktop or perhaps in the command browser.
10. In any case, your command is ready now so all you now need do is to speak the name of the command and it should work.

You can have as many dllCall statements as you want in a script. The key thing to remember is that the Jaws and Dragon scripts should be synchronized that is they should be loaded at the same time otherwise, if the Dragon commands are loaded and the Jaws script files are absent, you will get an “unknown script call” to the script if you speak the relevant Dragon command.

Let us look at another example. I have created a macro in Outlook that deletes messages that have the same thread. I need to invoke this macro when I say “delete thread”. The Dragon command is below. I have added comments to each statement.

Sub Main
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,” SpeechOff” ‘turn jaws speech off SendDragonKeys “{alt+f8}” ‘invoke the macro ecxecution dialog SendDragonKeys “{alt+r}” ‘only 1 macro in outlook so run it
DllCall “MSGW1004″,”JFWRunScript”,” SpeechOn” ‘enable jaws speech End Sub

Visual garment shopping in the desert

by Pranav · Jun 18, 2011

Jodhpur is famous for its handicrafts; these include bed covers, bed sheets, jewellery with semiprecious stones and a number of carvings. My family was keen to have bedcovers from Jodhpur. In my entire 32 years on the planet, I had never ever before bot a
bed cover. The first challenge was color. My mom knew that she wanted beige but there was no way for me to check except use the services of my ever helpful cited colleague. The second thing she wanted was a bed cover with small print. Now this was something more along my line. I was able to use the vOICe to gauge the print of the bed cover. The process is really simple. I took my mobile phone and moved it over the sample I was examining. It was easy to pick up the different designs and the print as a cluster of high-pitched beeps in the view.

In addition, it was also possible to determine the overall shape of the design thanks to the panning. Mind you, I was not using headphones at that time.

Needless to say, I attracted a significant degree of attention but the shopkeepers were not asking me any questions directly. They were more comfortable asking my cited colleague. I did not have the time or inclination to try and alter that thought pattern. I was too busy being a customer and trying to buy the right item.

The story has a happy ending since I bought three bedcovers from the shop and they have been well received at home.

A painting experience

by Pranav · May 22, 2011

I was at the select City Walk with a friend and decided to try painting a cup. The outfit provides clay cups and other items and you can paint them in whatever colors you want. The items are then glazed therefore you need to wait 10 days before you get your painted item. In our case, we decided to paint a cup. Our strokes had to be uniform and the quantity of water in the paint had to be controlled. I had a look with the phone version of the vOICe while we were painting. It was impossible to tell the difference in colors and I did not expect the vOICe to give me that information since the soundscapes do not encode color. However, I was abe to tell when the color was not uniform since I was able to sense the sploches of paint on the cup.

Painting the inside was tricky. I suspect I need a powerful light to look inside and then monitor things closely with the vOICe. I tried moving the brush in random patterns inside and thought I had covered the base. That was not the case. My friend had to step in and help.

Accessible astronomy, Moghal style

by Pranav · Feb 27, 2011

It was thanks to the Emerits Airlines offices being next to Jantar Mantar/a> that I finally had a chance to visit this monument. I had imagined it to be something with aincient telescopes but it was nothing of the kind. There were a series of structures arranged around a compound. Each structure was a yantra or tool. You could physically get into them and had to climb a number of stairs [Read more…] about Accessible astronomy, Moghal style

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

Accessibility

A quick and dirty way to make tactile images

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the Taj Mahal a not so wonderful wonder

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controlling jaws for Windows through Dragon NaturallySpeaking using J say

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Visual garment shopping in the desert

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A painting experience

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Accessible astronomy, Moghal style

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