Tactile Vision Substitution with Tablet and Electro-Tactile Display
We developed a device that converts visual information on a tablet into tactile information on the fingertip. To achieve this we mount optical sensors and a tactile display on the fingertip. Our first prototype using a vibrator for each finger revealed th
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The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo, Japan {uematsu,kajimoto}@kaji-lab.jp EyePlusPlus, Inc., Shinsagawa Bldg. 201, 1-27-1, Ishihara, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan {suzuki,kanno}@eyeplus2.com
Abstract. We developed a device that converts visual information on a tablet into tactile information on the fingertip. To achieve this we mount optical sensors and a tactile display on the fingertip. Our first prototype using a vibrator for each finger revealed that it was difficult to recognize the information of the display, mainly because of its low resolution. We addressed this limitation in our second prototype by using electro-tactile stimulation. From our preliminary experiment with a mechanical pin matrix, we decided to use a single index finger. In a subsequent alphabet recognition experiment, we confirmed that it is possible to recognize relatively complex shapes on a tablet with the device. Furthermore, we observed that the learning curve is quite steep, which implies the potential of the device. Keywords: Electro-tactile
Tactile vision substitution Visually impaired
1 Introduction Understanding information on a computer screen is a challenge for visually impaired people. When the character-based user interface (CUI) was dominant, it was relatively easy to convert the information to voice or braille display. Then, the era of the graphical based user interface (GUI) arrived, where the presented information cannot be easily translated to a temporal sequence. Today, tactile graphics displays that incorporate numerous mechanical pins are widely used to present graphical information. Now we live in the era of personal portable computing devices. Of these, the tablet has perhaps the ideal user interface for non-blind users because it is “what you see is what you touch”. However, for visually impaired users, information has once again become difficult to access. Tactile graphics displays can be connected but the portability is sacrificed. This paper addresses this issue, by developing a portable tactile vision substitution system for a tablet. The device is composed of an array of optical sensors and an electro-tactile display for one finger. The optical sensors capture the brightness of the display, and the electro-tactile display presents it directly to the finger. This device is a © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 F. Bello et al. (Eds.): EuroHaptics 2016, Part I, LNCS 9774, pp. 503–511, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-42321-0_47
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direct descendant of previous SmartTouch system [1], but it has four times more electrodes, which greatly improves its resolution. This enables numerous functionalities. For example, by using the tablet’s camera, visually impaired users can take a picture of the surrounding environment and determine its contents by their finger, enabling them to go sightseeing. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, we demonstrate that shape recognition using a single optical sensor and vibrator on one finger is quite difficult, but m
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