[accessibleimage] Re: Accessible Freehand Drawing

Hi Will,

Can this tool be used to examine as well as draw?  can I confirm and erase?  
Can we add voice notes or text notes or both?  Also, I find hactics to be a bit 
of overhead for many situations.  How about applying audio such as that which 
was employed in Master Touch from humanware many years back?  Not knowing the 
scope of the project, this would be at least a beginning wish list.  Oh, one 
more thing, it would be good if the output could be saved in a format 
compatible with software which produce embossed tactile output right John?.

Nice idea!

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Will Pearson 
  To: accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 5:12 AM
  Subject: [accessibleimage] Accessible Freehand Drawing


  Hi, 

  If you had an accessible freehand drawing tool what features would you like 
to see in it?  I've very recently finished a prototype freehand drawing tool
  that allows a blind person to explore, create, and modify diagrams using 
haptic I/O, which is similar to tactile diagrams.  This piece of software does
  *NOT* make a diagram accessible through speech, either through the use of a 
screen reader or by self-voicing, and I have no intention of making it do so. 

  The software has a limited set of features at the moment.  It uses a single 
pen to draw, which is in the form of a freeform line, and only works with black
  and white images; However, it has several advantages, namely, it uses the 
standard bitmap format and is allows for blind and sighted individuals to 
collaborate
  on drawing tasks together.  The software has several features designed to 
enable this integrated collaborative approach: networking that allows many 
people
  to collaborate together and a visual, as well as a haptic, user interface, 
both of which can be used separately or in combination. 

  One feature I'm thinking of investigating is incorperating support for the 
Mimeo range of electronic whiteboards.  My hope in investigating this is that
  including this, if possible, could really improve integration for blind 
students in a mainstream learning environment. 

  At the moment this is only a research prototype, but your ideas are welcome.  
I'm hopefully going to begin making this publically available next year. 
  The main reason for this delay in availability is that haptic hardware is 
still very expensive; however, this is planned to change next year with the 
release
  of some low cost haptic devices.  As usual, this is a spare time project and 
the timline may slip on my part. 

  Will

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