1. Visualization Learning for Visually Impaired People Patrick Salamin, Frédéric Vexo, Daniel Thalmann Patrick Salamin, Ph. D. student VRLab/EPFL, Switzerland

2. 2 Introduction Motivation: –Digital content on the WEB is for everyone –What about visually impaired people with 3D shapes (e.g. a human face)? Constraints: –Patient have to be not born blind –System must be low-cost and mobile for a large dissemination

3. 3 Why 3D shapes and audio? 3D shapes –Crucial for the Education Available modalities (haptic feedback) –Force feedback  corners problem, expensive –Tactile  good for surfaces, non-portable –Audio  good for volumes, not for surfaces Our solution: the PDA –Audio and tactile screen combined –Low-cost and portable http://www.societyofrobots.c om/robot_arm_tutorial.shtml http://pegasus.me.jhu.edu/~r webster/index_files/projects/ tactile.htm http://www.mondotees.com/i ndex.asp?PageAction=VIEWPR OD&ProdID=2896

4. 4 System description 1 Digital content on the WEB Extraction of semantic information from a 3D shape Acquisition of the data through the Internet

5. 5 System description 2 Semantic rendering Tests and results

6. 6 Conclusion Efficiency –Clear understanding of the contours –Intuitive concept of continuous tonality variation to render the height –Efficient and promising application Further works: –More complex shapes (e.g. human faces, and even… animations?) –Working with visually impaired people

7. 7 That’s all folks! Thanks for your attention Questions?