hello, Steven, for freehand work you could use a renewable white or black plastic board of some sort, and" draw" things on it with something called wikki stix, there a colored waxed string about 6 inches long that will adhere to almost any surface that is not oily or wet, and sometimes even the wet ones. then you could scan the image and turn it into the format you need. you can find information on, and order packages of wikki stix at: www.wikkistix.com/product/820s.htm your application idea sounds good, very good in fact, I am wondering if the application who's source code is up on my grab bag site: http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com down in the made handy and useful ... section (hit num row 3 for skipping down the headers to the section, then tab once to get to its download link) its an accessible UML application and it's source code so it can be improved upon, ken would this be useful? and ken, I will be very interested in your application myself, sounds interesting. rather puts me in mind of the old main frame figure printing routines that used *'s X's and 0's to form images, and was used by the programmers to make some rather interesting picture calendars and the like, girns. HTH, inthane ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen S. Disbrow To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 7:10 PM Subject: Bitmaps, Icons, Cursors Hi, Maybe this is a silly question, but does anyone know of a accessible program for creating bitmaps, icons, cursors, and the like? I was thinking of something that presented a grid, and told you which cell you were in, and allowed you to pick what you wanted to set for that cell, and any other properties that are necessary for the item being created. We would have to visualize the picture in our heads.I often think that we could create a tactile representation, and than translate it into a grid pattern. Steve D.