switchboard
A switch board in a conference room
vOICe
Some leaves
leaves
Functional recruitment of visual cortex for sound encoded object
See the abstract of this study. If I understand things correctly, a late blind subject was subjected to TMS such that the areas related to vision were made temporarily inoperative. This user was unable to use the vOICe thereby indicating that the vOICe’s approach to sensory substitution is closly mapped to vision.
Controlling the vOICe remotely without changing focus from the current application
I have created a utility to remote control the vOICe
The program is open source and you can get it at the following link.
vOICeCmd
I am including the program’s manual below.
Introduction
vOICeCmd is a utility that allows remote control of the The vOICe from the commandline. The vOICe uses windows messages as a remote control mechanism. This approach though easy-to-use cannot be used by the average user primarily because it involves a lot of programming. This utility is a wrapper around that functionality. The entire interface of the vOICe can be accessed using simple to use commandline commands.
Usage
All that you need to do to use this interface is to ensure that the vOICe is running. Once that is the case, you can pass one command at a time to the vOICe. For example, to increase the frame rate by four times, you would issue the command:
vOICeCmd Speed*4
similarly, to mute the vOICe, you would issue the command
vOICeCmd Mute
Installation
no special installation is required. Copy the vOICeCmd executable to the folder where the vOICe executable resides.
Notes
- Only one command at a time can be specified on the commandline using vOICeCmd. This is deliberate. It is easy to implement the passing of multiple commands. However, in my experience, the user needs some time to assimilate any change that takes place in the output of the vOICe. So, as of now, I have decided to stick to the single command approach.
- It is also important that the vOICe is started manually. I have decided not to start the vOICe from vOICeCmd. This is because I have no easy way of telling whether the user has enough permissions to run the vOICe.
Batch file error codes
If executing vOICeCmd from a batch file, you can use the errorlevel construct to trap the results from vOICeCmd.
| Error code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | normal exit |
| 1 | an invalid command was specified |
| 2 | no command was specified on the commandline |
| 3 | the vOICe is not running |
Credits
This programme would not have been possible without the sample code an easy to follow instructions provided on the seeing with sound website by Doctor Peter BL Meijer
I would also like to thank members of the program-l list
in particular, Mark Long for helping me with my Visual C++ questions.
Contacting me
You can contact me through the seeing with sound mailing list or through this blog.
= Links of interest =
Direct link to the page about remote controling the vOICe including a list of commands
image of a mexican sizzler
What the vOICe has done for me
I am occasionally asked “what has the vOICe done for you?” I can think of 8 points right now.
1. It has allowed me to see what I cannot touch. For instance, complex scenes, shapes of items like the moon for which there is no model available at least where I live. I have also scene out the windscreen in a car.
2. I have now begun finding objects that I have dropped using the vOICe. No more groping around for stuff.
3. I have used it to evaluate web page design at my job. The evaluation is not a core component in my job but was important for the project I was working on at that time.
4. I can now perceive things remotely which is very handy especially when moving around. For example, when I visit a new place, I can get far more information by looking around using the vOICe.
5. I can now draw and see what I have drawn.
6. I can participate much much better in family activities like looking at photographs and even in the festival of lights namely diwali. I can now see what my house looks like when it is all lit up! More to the point, I can even capture that image and view it whenever I choose.
7. I have always wanted to be a researcher. The vOICe has given me the opportunity to play that role.
8. I keep discovering newer facets with this program so this list will only grow.
A 2d representation of a lion and a cub
