[accessibleimage] Re: tactile and auditory representations of neuroimaging data

Hello again Nayab.   I've interspersed my comments/answers below.
John


-----Original Message-----
From: accessibleimage-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:accessibleimage-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of N.Begum
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:49 AM
To: accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: tactile and auditory representations of
neuroimaging data

Thank you, we'll definitely get some sample images both to yourself and
Peter.
As we're interested in highlighted areas of activity on brain activation
maps, I'm not sure a labelling system is what we're after, so I don't think
talking tablets are necessarily the solution?
JAG: Yes I agree with you.  But what you do need, as I understand it, is
more information than you can get with automatically-generated tactile
graphics.  I am not familiar with these pictures, so I might be wrong.  If
gray scale information is sufficient, tactile copy may be good enough, but
if you need color, there isn't any practical way to encode that tactually,
at least on the continuous kind of picture like these.  Even if gray scale
is adequate you still may not be able to achieve fine-grain resolution.
That's where the touch pad is useful.  With the new intensity/color access
we're developing for IVEO, you should be able to move your finger around and
hear non-speech sounds that give you pretty accurate feedback on color and
intensity.  My mental image of what you need to access suggests that such a
technology could give you what you need.  

The AGC looks really interesting -does it give tactile feedback as well as
sound?
JAG: It is a Windows application and makes graphs that can be printed to a
Tiger embosser.  But instant on-line access is through audio tone graphs.

Although swell paper produces smooth lines, its very inconvenient as images
have to be simplified, photocopied onto paper which is then passed through
the machine, meaning we lose information, probably need sighted assistance
and the process is really time consuming.  It is for these reasons I thought
the tiger embosser may be more useful, as well as producing higher
resolution grey-scale images.
JAG: Exactly so.

The thing I don't really understand-besides labelling, is there an advantage
printing out a tactile image using a tiger embosser after it has been
converted to IVEO form, rather than simply printing a Jpeg file with the
tiger embosser?
JAG: Unless you need to access text labels on a bit map image or use the
(future) color/intensity feedback, IVEO gives you no obvious advantage for
automatically-generated tactile access.  Well maybe just a little.  With
judicious use of IVEO and embosser user options you can zoom your image so
it's maximum size for whatever paper you're using.  And then you can
selectively zoom different parts of that image.  Maybe this would be useful
and maybe not.


As there are so many brain images generated, and a sighted person would be
able to scan through them to see which ones are relevant, it seems slightly
disadvantageous to have to print every single image out in order to access
it.  This is why we were investigating electronically refreshable devices.
JAG:  I don't blame you.  Not sure whether VOICe can screen for the kind of
information that is of interest.  If it can, it would be the right choice.
Ideally VOICe could tell you which pictures of interest and maybe even which
portions of that image are important.  I'll guess that you'll then want to
use tactile or tactile/audio for careful detailed investigation.

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