[optacon-l] Re: Extra Abilities Provided By The Optacon
- From: "Nick Dotson" <nickdotson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:29:55 -0600
I love using the Optacon with Spreadsheets and tables. Listening to them,
or trying to examine them on a braille display just doesn't make them as
meaningful to my mind's hand.
In the scanner's defense: first, OCR as it is generally encountered is
designed to capture literary text. When Desktop Publishing software and
printers capable of generating proportional spacing and myriad type fonts
became ubiquitous, the principals of traditional design did not proliferate
through the user population in the same manner as did the software and
hardware. People became entranced with their narcissistic/solipsistic ideas
of what connoted creativity of layout in their own minds. This meshed with
the culture's continuing drift toward post literacy and a descent back into
pictographic communications because of TV, movies, and computer gaming...
(grin)
So, as there are no standards to which typography and design cling, it is
ever harder for software to handle the heuristics of document design. For
that matter, I find that it is often hard for sighted human readers to get
past the undisciplined document design to the denotative content of the
document...
If properly set up and optimized, there is no excuse for the scanner and
software to have missed the inversed text. There is, however some
justification for the loss of the text running in a converse manner in
orientation to the majority of text in the document. At least in Kurzweil
1000, one can independently, or with a sighted assistant, examine the
regions into which a page has been divided by the OCR software prior to
recognition and recomposition, and to re order the regionalization of the
page, then have it rerecognized in that order.
I think that because we have emotionally laden personal axes to grind with
respect to the utility of the capabilities of our favored moribund tool of
choice--analogous to the fountain pen in sighted culture as contrasted with
alternatives like the ball-point pen, markers, crayons and whatever goofy
device captivates marketroids and mindless consumers, We tend to deride the
capabilities and utility of OCR technology to do much useful heavy-lifting
of conveying large volumes of text to us in a rapid timely efficient manner
capable of enabling us to work competitively Etc... Much of the criticisms
I repeatedly hear on this list regarding OCR technology bespeaks a lack of
familiarity with the methods by which it can be best employed, and a lack of
understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the technology as a tool in
our personal arsenals for Information Access Parity...
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Catherine Thomas
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 7:43 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Extra Abilities Provided By The Optacon
I work as a braille transcriber and I must tell you that the layouts of
print pages are getting more and more complex as time goes by. Here is a
story that will interest you because the Optacon emerges as the definite
hero.
Recently I received an electronic document to transcribe into braille. The
document had been scanned but the scanned version had not been examined. I
had to ask the customer for a print copy of the original document. Here are
some of the things that the Optacon uncovered.
1. The electronic scan had missed all the major headings in the
document because they were in inverse color (white on black).
2. The document contained bi-directional printing--words that ran
from the top to the bottom of the page. The scanner missed those entirely
also.
3. A very large table had headings across the top and also along the
sides. The scanner picked up all the text but not nearly in the correct
order.
4. Rather than using tables, some of the text had been represented
graphically with lines and squares pointing to things and words and numbers
that pointed to nothing at all. I could not interpret that mess with the
Optacon, but I could determine when I got some sighted help that all the
relevant information had been included.
Many blind people merrily scan documents never even realizing that half the
text could be missing, or as someone mentioned out of order. This is
particularly damaging when for instance an answer key is involved, Unless it
lines up exactly, the person receives totally wrong information.
I often encounter pictures in my work. Some of them are labeled with
important data and some are just decorative and unimportant. The Optacon can
sometimes help to figure out which is which and, if nothing else, the
Optacon can tell me when to ask for sighted interpretation.
I use the Optacon every day, personally and professionally. I would have to
say that my life would be very different without the Optacon.
Catherine
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-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
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