I think you might be overcomplicating things. Any new optacon would probably
have to have zoom features just like the ones you find on phones and are used
in computer magnification software. NO doubt the best platform for a new
optacon would be Android mobile. A mobile device is very portable and easy to
update. Android is the most open software platform for development. App
updates don't need to be approved by Google. The only certification would be
the initial certification of the optacon as a trusted device to Google.
Having the optacon be a mobile device would offer the most flexibility. It's
also the type of device most people are familiar with.
Dan
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf
Of David
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:03 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carolyn <4carolyna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Hi, Optaconers
Eh, do we see one of the few cases, where we could wish for an electronic
feature of the next generation Optacon?
We have been talking of the benefit of the Optacon leaving all the
interpretation to the human brain. And yet, what if you got a new Optacon. you
sit down and do your reading, and come across a part of the text in thick
print. You now press a button on the Optacon, and a tiny piece of software
kicks in. It does no interpretation, no reshaping, no nothing. What it is all
about, is that it will scan the picture of the character, and rip off all the
thickness. What is left for you to feel, is a true copy of the character, but
with thinner lines.
The basics of the technology could be described as follows.
Scan the image;
Look for continuous lines in the image, where three or more needles next to
each others are active; Cut off one of the needles in such cases.
Your shape-lines of the character, now will be one needle thinner. If you press
the button once again, the software will go one step further, taking the
shape-lines down to one needle - the thinnest and most crisp you could get.
Of course, there are the moments, when you find yourself wishing there would be
a chance to thicken some text. That could specially be, when a font type has
very thin lines in the top and bottom of the characters.
In such cases, there could be a second button, leaving you the chance to
activate extra needles on the thinner parts of the image.
What do you think. This would be no interpretation, but more a bit of
assistance in "seeing" the shape more clearly, leaving you the better chance to
perform the recognition of the characters. Promise you, when dealing with
things like electronic diagrams, I've been wishing for some kind of ways to
make the lines thicker, just as frequently as I wish there would be ways to
make shapes thinner.
As a bit of a sidenote here, which goes along the same line of ideas, how about
when you read text that vary between bold (emphasized) text, and plain
characters. Or, where you would have a mix of fonts, some more outstanding than
others. Great if you are eager to know the outlook of the page. And necessary
whenever you are to deal with certain features of the material you read, like
recognizing and distinguish the very number, in a mathematical formula. But it
often leads to extensive thumbling with the knobs of the Optacon, raising and
lowering the intensity and thickness of the displayed image. What if the next
Gen Optacon had a feature, that could be turned on, which would attempt to give
some mild equalization through out the text. It would attempt to reduce the
boldness of the boldest print, somehow making it close to the rest of the text.
A trained user would still feel a slight boldness to the print, but it would be
no more than what still would be readable, without any further adjustment. Kind
of a
"This is my reading level"-setting.
This level of adjustment could be saved, and brought up, whenever the user
wants to do a plain reading of text. You then can go for the raw reading, like
we have to day, if you need all the whistles and bells of the text layout. But
in most daily activities, when you do not care much about the layout, only want
to get to the info, the levelled-reading could be activated.
And yes, of course any such settings should be divided into as small steps as
possible in practical terms. Having only one or two steps of adjusting, may
prove unacceptable. Again, blowing the Optacon with 129 steps for adjusting,
will likely be little practically beneficial, and rather prove frustrating.
Something between 8 and 12 steps, either direction, might be useful. You then
could go from minus 12, to plus 12
- 0 being the standard, or Raw mode. Raw mode, would be what we already have on
our current Optacon models.
Technically, these features are possible, and not too difficult to implement in
the software - I would conclude. It is all about algorithms, and is being done
in photo handling in dedicated applications on your computer and cellphone
already. Without me having checked it up, I am ready to think there might be
some freeware algorithms available on the net already, that could be used for
such up and down scaling of the thickness and boldness of scannings of the
printed text.
Lastly, one more thing that I find myself often wishing for, is the chance of
bi-derectional scaling of the image. You all are familiar with the slider on
top of the camera, leaving you the chance of adjusting the magnification of the
character a bit. But it seem to only change the hight of the character. I wish
there would be ways, to adjust the magnification either direction. Sometimes it
would have been nice to widen the character a bit, other times it is nice to
lower the hight.
And there would even be times when you need do a bit of adjustment to both the
hight and width of the character, to have the best reading experience.
Specially this comes true, when you deal with symbols, icons and things like
diagrams of different sorts. If the slider had been replaced with a four way
button, like the arrow-button on some old-style cellphones and remote controls,
you could have stepped up and down in either hight or width. Press Up-arrow to
raise the hight, Down-arrow to lower it. Press Right-arrow to increase the
width, and left-Arrow to decrease. Even some users might find that they would
read better, if the character could be centered more to the point on their
finger, where they hold the highest sensitivity.
Don't know, what the rest of you think. Got a few more ideas here, but we'll
save them for later.
On 3/25/2020 6:34 PM, Carolyn wrote:
I agree about thick print, as opposed to thin and sharpthe quotes) in the message subject.
print.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
harlynn@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:18 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Hi, Optaconers
This is Bob from Brooklyn, NY. I have been using my optacon
to go over
mail: I read part with the optacon, and part with my Sara.
I like how they work together. I find that my main problem
is still that I often think I know the next word in a
sentence, and then realize I guessed wrong, and have to go
back and figure it out.
Very thick print is challenging for me. But regular print,
I can do pretty well.
I hope all of you are safe, and perhaps using some down time
to use your optacons!
Kind regards,
Bob
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