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.
- Navigate to the article at the above link.
- Read the article and then use the quick navigation feature to navigate to a graphic of choice.
- Launch The vOICe and activate its client area sonification feature.
- Swap back to the article and navigate to the graphic of interest.
- Pay attention to the soundscapes. You will be able to hear the spikes that give the virus its name.
- 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.
- Navigate to the article titled New Images of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Now Available
- 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.
- 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
- 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.