[accessibleimage] Tactile Image Font - drawing tool for the blind

Hi,

I have been working on another drawing tool for the visually impaired.

It's kind of a semi-automatic one to be used with a PC for svell or Tiger. What I doing is making fonts which instead of letters prints drawings, so that when one types a letter on the keyboard using this font, a picture will come up. Then one enlarges the font size that it is large enough to be tactile legible when printed out. So far I have made one which includes geometrical forms, a simple picture of a plant cell, a map of Afghanistan, a stick figure, the sun. I have even made one with Munch's Scream. The fonts are .ttf, the usual font type that is installed in a computer.

The idea is similar to the font Wingdings. The difference being that the figures used would be ones that are often used, like geometric forms, simple line drawings etc. And another important difference is that they are made with the idea that they will be read by the blind.

So that when a blind user types a letter “a”, for example a hexagon will appear, then he/she enlarges the font size of the “letter-picture” and then embosses out a picture of the hexagon, or a simple map of a country and so on. Could also be a tool for a sighted user who wants to make a quick tactile graphic.

I have used the Tiger embosser to emboss them out and it seems to work pretty well. One could also use them for svell.

One font would not be able to include all forms desired therefore one would need more of a font family- Tactile Image Font family.

The aim of this tool is to increase the availability of tactile images and to increase the tools available for the blind to create tactile images or images for the sighted. Here I was imaging a blind teacher wanting to make a quick picture for a sighted student.

An index of which letter corresponds to which picture would be included. One can change the font size, make the lines thicker by selecting "bold", slant the graphic by selecting "Italic" etc in the tool bar.

I am interested in getting suggestions about subjects for image groups such as geometrical forms, hieroglyphics, architectural forms etc.

And also if there is anyone that would like to know more about them to drop me a line.

Regards,
Lisa


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