Postponed: Applied Haptics: Audio/Tactile Technologies for Improving Access to Maps and Models

Abstract:

Since 1998, Touch Graphics, Inc. has created educational products and exhibits that combine tactile graphics and models with touch-activated spoken description. For example, the Talking Tactile Pen, developed in partnership with the Smith-Kettlewell RERC, acts as a description probe for maps, diagrams, and tables, making these materials accessible to visually impaired students and others who can't use traditional print graphics. Lately, the company demonstrated a new, more precise process for printing large-format tactile skins that can be used as overlays on touch screens to create universal digital signage, as in the network of 40 universal floor plans just completed at Google's NYC offices. Other work to be presented: touch-responsive seahorse and penguin models at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and the Overbrook School Campus Model, where the company showed how standard touch monitors can be re-purposed as multi-channel capacitive touch sensors for 3D surfaces and objects. By leveraging off the shelf components like Raspberry Pi computers and Android tablets, and using new fabrication tools like flatbed printers that build up precise tactile surfaces and braille from UV-hardened transparent gel, the company is improving on methods have been around since teachers began creating hand-carved tactile maps and models for blind students in the early nineteenth century.

*Please note the date has been changed*