Dear Jaws user,
It is now possible to complement your favourite screen
reader with a PC camera to access visual information
beyond your computer screen! The vOICe Learning Edition
software translates video to audio in a very general
way.
The software grabs video images from the PC camera
and generates corresponding "soundscapes" that contain
much of the visual information of the camera images.
Because there is normally a lot of information in
each image, it uses a scanning approach: images are
scanned from left to right, each scan lasting about
one second. During such a one-second scan, the stereo
sound pans from left to right as well, to ease the
perception of each scan. Furthermore, visual height
is translated into pitch: the higher an object, the
higher the pitch. The brighter an object, the louder
its sound. A bright, diagonal line stretching upward
to the right just produces a loud "ooiieep" rising-pitch
sound and another stretching downward to the right makes
the opposite sound, "eeiioop". With two lines you will
hear two tones, and so forth.
The software was recently covered in a Wired News
article at the web page
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/16454.html
and is currently available for free from the web page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvoice.htm
It includes zoom, slow and fast motion, negative video,
color identification, image file and screen sonification,
auditory function plots, an exercise mode, and many
other advanced features. Recognized colors in the color
identification mode include red, green, blue, cyan, yellow,
orange and magenta, as well as combination colors. The
color identification mode is activated by pressing function
key F10, and the color name will be spoken by a human voice.
The software requires a PC camera to run, or else you will
only get a spoken error message saying "I'm sorry, The vOICe
cannot find your webcam". PC cameras nowadays typically cost
less than $100. The software download is less than 600K in
size, and is provided at no charge and no obligations whatsoever.
I only request the favour of receiving e-mail with feedback
about your experiences with the software. Many improvements
have been implemented in recent months, with valuable feedback
from an expert blind Jaws user. Development is still ongoing,
in particular in trying to further improve compatibility with
popular screen readers such as Jaws for Windows.
The vOICe Learning Edition software has been tested to
work well with the factory default settings of Jaws for
Windows, using Jaws to navigate the menus and dialogs
of The vOICe Learning Edition. The only thing you have
to take care of is releasing the audio device to Jaws
by pressing Ctrl+F2 in The vOICe Learning Edition software,
or else Jaws cannot speak because of the continuously
updated soundscapes. Vice versa, you can return to the
soundscapes by pressing the Ctrl+F2 toggle a second time.
If an audio device conflict occurs, you may have to pause
Jaws output via Ctrl+P before you can reactivate The vOICe
Learning Edition soundscapes via its Ctrl+F2 muting toggle.
Although the video to audio translation rules are both
simple and general, learning to understand the complicated
soundscapes of real-life images can be very hard and will
require extensive training: vision itself happens to be
complicated. So the disadvantage of providing full access
to vision is now that you are exposed to the full complexity
of vision, through your ears. Currently it is not known if
blind users can learn to handle complicated visual information
provided through their ears. It will definitely require a lot
of endurance in training, and the final level of performance
is unknown. Technically, the preservation of a lot of visual
information in the soundscapes has been proven, so you need
not worry about that, but it is the human factors that we
know much less about. This is the greatest challenge that we
are currently facing. However, The vOICe technology offers
by far the most affordable means for general access to visual
information.
Some example sounds that you can listen to are provided in
WAV sound format on the web page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voiswall.htm
giving the sound of a bright wall with a gate, and the web page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voiscope.htm
demonstrating the sound of two oscilloscope screen images.
If you have an MP3 sound player, you can also try the MP3
sound samples at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winoandm.htm
File size is only 16K per MP3 sample here. Make sure that
your MP3 player runs in autorepeat mode, or the soundscapes
will be over before you realize it. The sixteen MP3 samples
correspond to a panoramic overview with photographs of
buildings, trees and other visual things converted into
sound using The vOICe Learning Edition software.
Most of the information about software installation and
usage can be found at the three web pages
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvoice.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvoic2.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvfaq.htm
Happy New Year, and have fun!
Peter Meijer
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Soundscapes from The vOICe - Seeing with your Ears!
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/
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