[accessibleimage] Re: Paintings really can be heard, scientist says

Hi Lisa,

Thanks! Any audio software that can make spectrograms
will turn soundscapes (from The vOICe) back into images.
With appropriate sounds, spectrograms can show any shape
or combination of shapes. In fact, the basic concept
underlying The vOICe makes that it synthesizes sounds in
such a way that a spectrogram will approximately return
the original image (with limited resolution, and in B&W).

The vOICe Learning Edition does not include spectrographic
visualizaton, but The vOICe Java application does. However,
it is not accessible to blind users as it is based on old
Java AWT technology for which no screen reader interface
exists. Still, sighted users can use it to convert the
often extremely complex soundscapes back into images that
they readily recognize through sight, so they know that
the original visual content that had first been converted
into sound was indeed preserved in the sound.

If you have a webcam, you can use a felt pen to draw
on paper and readily see/hear what you have drawn, using
negative video (function key F5) to better hear the view
with bright (loud) lines on a dark (silent) background.
Some users start with their TWAIN compliant flatbed
scanner, putting their drawing on the scanner and then
acquiring the view via Control Q (or via the File menu).
There exist many different ways of handling input. There
is also a mini-tutorial as a plain text file at the URL

   http://www.seeingwithsound.com/intro.txt

The vOICe Java applet allows you to draw a sound/image
on a canvas, at the URL

   http://www.seeingwithsound.com/blindraw.htm

but unfortunately this is not particularly accessible
for lack of screen reader support with the Java AWT
user interface standard. This was all developed before
Sun came out with the Swing standard that later on got
screen reader interfacing support.

Best wishes,

Peter


Seeing with Sound - The vOICe
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm


Lisa Yayla wrote:
Hi Peter,
I was playing with The vOICe a bit, making pictures and seeing what sounds
I would get.
It was fun. Have you ever thought of about a feature/tool where sound
produces picture. could be a
way of drawing. Do you know if anything like that exists? I was thinking
of something more than sound producing lines on a graph, but something like shapes?
Best,
Lisa


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