Printed Photos the Blind Can 'See'
From: Discovery News - 02/16/2011
By: Alyssa Danigelis 

The International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces featured a
demonstration of software that created recognizable images for the blind.
Arizona State University professor Baoxin Li invited attendees to have their
pictures taken, then used his team's computer application to automatically
generate printable tactile versions. "We convert the photo in such a way so
the major facial landmarks are nicely kept--that's very important because we
can't render all the features into tactile form," Li says. The software is
designed to work with a special tactile printer to produce images with raised
lines along the facial features. "It's a tour de force that he can analyze a
face and make it feel like a face," says John Gardner of ViewPlus
Technologies, which developed the tactile printer used by Li. It currently
takes about one minute to generate a tactile photo of a face, but the
software could be optimized to work faster. Li says the software will work
with paperless tactile displays that are in development. The researchers also
are considering creating software that can generate tactile images from
online mapping sites. 

Read the entire article at:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/blind-portrait-photos-tactile-tech-110216.html

Links:
Baoxin Li
http://www.public.asu.edu/~bli24/

ViewPlus Technologies
http://www.viewplus.com/

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Researchers Help Blind 'See' Facebook Photos
From: State Press (AZ) - 02/24/2011
By: Kortney Tenaglia 

The visually impaired could more fully experience social networking by using
technology that would allow them to "see" the images of faces on computers.
Arizona State University professor Baoxin Li is developing the technology
with several students. "Imagine if a blind user can now get an idea what his
[or] her Facebook friends 'look like' by touching tactile pictures made from
their photos," Li says. The idea is to use tactile printing to enable the
visually impaired to explore a graphical image of a human face with their
fingertips and to experience what the person looks like. The team has
developed computer-based image-analysis techniques for identifying major
facial features, such as the eyes and nose, and for converting them into
tactile form. The technology could be used in different ways, such as "its
use as a software component for tactile printer manufacturers ... or a
software package for a user at home," Li says. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.statepress.com/2011/02/24/researchers-help-blind-‘see’-facebook-photos/