Audio-haptic browser for a geographical information system

Abstract

People who are blind or low vision currently hasn't obtained an effectual solution to access map applications. Although there are existing several paper-based tactile map projects, most of them need additional processing when product of new area of a map. Besides because of the size limitation of paper materials, these kinds of map fail to provide detailed information. In order to improvement accessibility of geographic data, we develop an audio-haptic map browser to access geo-data from an off-the-shelf GIS through a large-scale Braille display. The browser enables to not only maintain lively haptic sensation via raised pins, but also speech out detailed information of each map element stored in the GIS database. Furthermore, in principle it is possible to carry out worldwide map without any additional processing, if the GIS database supports. We employ a novel method, blinking pins, aimed at locating map elements quickly when implementing map search operations. Excepting introduction of our methodologies, we evaluate the system in 2 phases by participation of 4 blind persons. The results of evaluations have been issued in the end. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.