I have read some twin vision books to sighted people's children, and it gave me a good feeling to know the sighted child was seeing a picture that looked like it should visually. I am glad to know someone else feels like I do about outlines, Kelly. You gave a good example by using a stick man. It just isn't the same as havinng them described.. Sue S. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kellie Hartmann" <hart0421@xxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:12 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Innovative computer 'eyes' help blind read: The iCAREReader Hi Cindy, Most pictures really can't be made into meaningful tactile images. If you've never had vision, it is really difficult to look at the outline of something, sometimes even of a familiar object, and have that outline help you understand anything about the thing being drawn. Often when I was examining a tactile image I couldn't understand it, even if I knew exactly what it was supposed to be. And pictures with multiple objects or people or creatures or whatever would be incomprehensible chaos. The only thing that works are outlines, and those aren't meaningful most of the time. For example, I might be able to tell that an outline represented a person, but it would be like looking at a stick man is for a sighted person. It wouldn't tell me anything about the person. Those outlines work well for maps and charts and graphs, which I can interpret fairly easily when they're well designed. But when it comes to pictures, especially if they're entertaining, the only way for me to enjoy them is to have them described for me. My mom and some sighted friends enjoy describing cartoons when they find them funny, and I get the point about 99% of the time, and I can often understand and enjoy the funny aspects of the picture even though I can't actually visualize it in my mind. I had some of those Twin Vision books, but they didn't contain any tactile graphics. They just had the text in print and in braille. Kellie