Blind People to 'See' Color by Touch
From: Australian Broadcasting Corp. News - 04/14/2004
By: Heather Catchpole

Artur Rataj, from the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Computer Science
at the Polish Academy of Sciences, has created computer software for
translating color images into tactile form, allowing blind people to discern
color information in images. Several techniques are used to translate images
into forms blind people can understand, including using Braille dots in
different densities and an expensive process that involves vacuum-treated
plastic and 3D sculptures. Rataj improves on a third method, which uses
tactile graphics made from raised lines and dashes. These had previously been
only in black and white, but Rataj's software adds color information by
presenting lines at different rotational degrees in order to differentiate
color. Yellow is represented by vertical dots while horizontal dots denote
the presence of blue. Combinational colors such as orange are communicated by
angling the lines between the two primary colors. The software communicates
color intensity by placing the raised lines closer together. Rataj says the
system will allow blind people to recognize images more quickly and that he
is testing it now with users. Quantum Technology's Tim Connell, whose firm
builds a tactile graphic printer, said people who have been blind for life
find little meaning for color. Unless color carries some meaning, it is just
an aesthetic property, he said. Previously, color images had been translated
into tactile graphics by human interpreters, but never by a computer. 

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1086414.htm