[accessibleimage] Tactile graphics help visually impaired students

Hi,

Here, below, is an article from a local university paper about a project in
the University of Washington to make tactile graphics more affordable and
quicker to produce.

Sylvie Kashdan

Tactile graphics help visually impaired  students

By:  Jamie Hale / Contributing writer

Article in The Daily,  February 22, 2005

 In many ways, Zach Lattin is a "typical" college sophomore:  a double
major in math and Spanish, interested in dating, movies and music, downs
coffee by the mug, and parties regularly with friends.

An avid outdoorsman, he lists cross-country skiing, mountain biking and
hiking  as favorite hobbies.

One more thing about Lattin:  he has been blind since birth.

"I don't think a lot of people understand the full implication of what not
being able to 'see' for example, a mathematical figure, has on one's
understanding of the subject," he said.

With students like Lattin in mind, a team of UW researchers is using a
National Science Foundation grant to refashion teaching materials for
visually-impaired students.

Led by Richard Ladner, a computer science and engineering (CSE) professor,
the  Tactile Graphics Project is a multidisciplinary team of researchers who
hope  to make the math, science and engineering fields more easily
accessible to the  visually impaired.

"It used to take five hours of work to take a single graphic from a
textbook and translate it into tactile form," said Ladner, adding that now
it takes only two hours.

According to Ladner, a tactile graphic has raised bumps that contour
whatever  is being pictured.  Each graphic generally has to be fairly large
in order to  show detail, as well as fit Braille notation.

"We are essentially taking existing software and adapting it," he  said.

Designers used to draw graphics in the program Corel Draw and transfer them
to  a Braille printer.  To expedite the long process, according to Ladner,
researchers for the Tactile Graphics Project use a combination of existing
programs and languages including Adobe PhotoShop and Java.

Ladner said he hopes to hone the process into a half hour per graphic,
making  volumes of images more accessible.

"I think ...  the most important part of the project [is] the insight it
gives us into human perception, the realization of the one-sidedness and
'visual-ness' of educational information as it is presented to us," Lattin
said.

"[The Tactile Graphics Project] saved my life, at least in math," he  added.
"I couldn't have majored in math anywhere else."

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