A Stereo Auditory Image-perception Aid For The Blind

Tantribeau, Lee
1992 Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society  
A lhesis submitted ta the F'aeulty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering © Patnck Tantnbeau, 1992 • • • i ABSTRACT ThIS thesis presents the research to develop a technical aid for the blind to percelve images such as a face or a scenery. The image is scanned and explored interactlVely by touch through a probe mounled on lhe index Hnger of each hand. The pixel intensllies of lhe image are displayed ta the user as
more » ... amhtory sIgnaIs. For the study, the aid was implemented partIy by using a personal computer, a computer graphies tablet. a digitaJ-signal-processing board, and audio equlpment ln addItion, a 11me-Multiplexer clrcuil was built to support mputs from two fmger-probes wtllch are made by using two styluses of the graphies tablet. The system softwares were program:ned ta present the imnp;es as stereo audltory dlsplay. The aid was eva)uated on SIX blmd-frombirlh subJ{'cts ane! ten bhnclfolded slghted subJe~ts to determine how fast and arcurately they could perceive different muIll-gray Ievel Images, and how thelr performance change wlth mcreased experience. The results showecl that. wlth mcreaSUt expenence, the same image presented in the second tn,l) ('an be percclved in a shorter tlme than in the first trial. The subjects pt'rceivecl the bmary and the multi-gray level shapes within 2 minutes in average . • • • if RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse présente ia recherche qui a pour but cie clé'velopper ml(' aide technique pour aider les aveugles à percevoir de~ illlag('~ telles qu'ullt' face hummne ou une scène. L'lInage est explort'e IIlII'racllvl'IlWIII en touchant avec un capteur monté sur l'mdex dt" chaque' maill La IUlllin()~ltt' du pixel de l'Image sont présentées à l'u~a,gt'r salis fonne' cie ~igllallx auditifs en stéréo. Dqns cette étude. l'aide technique est implantée en utilisant Ull ordinateur. une tablette de graphiques informa Usées. une carte du traitement de signal numérique. et un équipement de son En plus. un circuit de Mulliplexeur-Temps est implanté pour permettre d'avoir It'~ entrées de deux capteurs qui sont faits a partH' de d{'uX stylo~ de la tahlette graphiq~,e
doi:10.1109/iembs.1992.589816 fatcat:bicfyigkejdufgap3jjwxjdh6a