Hi Esther, THank you for sharing all of this because I had not really given much thought to how best to hold the phone. I have always used portrait, but in considering what you have stated, I can see how landscape would make more sense. In fact it makes sense if for no other reason than better stability. I am definitely going to try try landscape mode with the OCR apps I have and see how that works. I hope this discussion will help others try other techniques as well which may improve their results as well. THanks Esther I always learn something new from your contributions.
Scott On Jul 21, 2012, at 7:34 PM, Esther <mori...@mac.com> wrote: > Hi Scott, > > I stated that comment about picking up the phone in landscape mode badly. I > meant to say that most VoiceOver users who use OCR apps, and lift their > iPhones above the page, find it easier to lift it and keep it flat and > stable, if they hold their phone with their hands along the long dimension > (i.e. "landscape" mode). I do pick up and hold my iPhone in portrait > orientation, and I can lift it and keep it fairly flat now, even with just > one hand, in portrait orientation, and get pretty good results with OCR apps. > (This is the result of muscle memory kicking in after training). However, if > I were to teach someone, in person, how to use an OCR app, I might well have > them rotate everything so that the document and phone are horizontally > oriented, and so they can pick up the iPhone more stably in landscape mode. > > For the extreme example, think about picking up a ruler, and being told to > hold it flat in the air. It is extremely difficult to hold the ends of the > short dimension and keep the ruler from twisting. Or think about carrying a > long, thin, package. You'll always hold the rectangle by the long ends if > you're carrying a stack of boxes and trying to balance them. > > The instructions for TextDetective do tell you to hold the phone in landscape > mode: > <begin quote> > How to scan and read text > > 1. Select the “Scan” tab. > 2. Place the phone in landscape and the home button > aligned with the right or left edge of the document. > 3. Recommendation: when pointing the phone at text, > try to keep the phone straight and parallel to the text > object. > 4. Lift the phone away from the document-about a > forearm’s length. Don't tilt or rotate, keep the phone > straight. > 5. Hit the “Start Scan” button and wait for the > “evaluating” prompt. > 6. Phone will vibrate for found detections. > 7. Once OCR is complete, a text field with all the > detected text will be shown. VoiceOver will speak all > the results. > 8. To read the individual results one by one, tap the > "individual detections" button. In VoiceOver mode, > use three finger gesture swipe left-right to navigate > use three finger gesture swipe left-right to navigate > through results (single finger swipe in non VoiceOver > mode). > 9. Hit Done-Back button to rescan. > 10. Note: Text may be at the top of the document. If > results aren't satisfactory, try placing the phone > nearer the top part of the page, while still aligning the > home button with the left or right edge of the > document. Then lift the phone and scan again. > <end quote> > > This combination of holding the iPhone in landscape mode while the document > page has to be in portrait mode almost guarantees that you won't be able to > get the entire text read at once unless you're reading a section of a page > where there is only text in the central third, or so of the page. Or this > will work for reading letter envelopes. > > There's another thing about holding the phone in landscape mode -- you can > use the edges of the portrait page to check your alignment, because they're > not so far from the edge of the phone. > > I think the fact that the developer of TextDetective was able to get National > Institutes of Health grant funding to support some of the work in the app > (see the app description page), and also bring down the cost of the initial > app so that more people could try it and get started, was also a deliberate > decision. > > I'd be really curious to hear the impressions from people who train others > (and who have mastered using OCR apps themselves), about what the most > effective teaching methods to use are. > > Just my thoughts. YMMV. Cheers, > > Esther > > On Jul 21, 2012, at 12:21 PM, Scott Howell wrote: > >> Esther, >> >> I thought the comment about most Voiceover users picking up their phone in >> landscape mode interesting. I actually have always used mine in portrait >> mode. I wonder though if the page has to be oriented correctly, I assume >> (and this probably is a pretty silly question) Text Detective already >> assumes the camera is oriented in the lower right corner, thus being 90 >> degrees off from what may be considered correct orientation? In other words >> could people have less than stellar results if the phone were oriented in >> the portrait mode? I don't know if the instructions tell you to put the >> phone in landscape mode, but would assume it does. I find this pretty >> interesting actually. >> I do agree the simplicity of Text Detective does make it attractive, but >> even as a 1.0 app I would have thought maybe the dev would have accounted >> for some features such as using the flash or auto flash and orientation of >> the document. I will be watching this app closely to see what comes next. >> Interestingly, this app was mentioned in a message that went out to the >> Section 508 working group in the agency where I work. The Section 508 >> working group is an interesting name since the objective of the group is to >> deal with accessibility of all IT and other technologies used in the >> workplace, although we tend to stray into other areas. :) >> Thanks for sharing the information. >> >> Scott >> >> On Jul 21, 2012, at 5:09 PM, Esther <mori...@mac.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Anne and Others, >>> >>> No, Text Detective does not yet support languages other than English. What >>> that means for languages like French, which use a Latin alphabet, is that >>> you'll get many of the words, but characters where you have an "e" with an >>> acute accent will show up as the number "6", for example. >>> >>> The plus side is that it is simple to use, and it gives people some better >>> immediate results because it has them hold the phone in landscape mode, >>> which is the way most VoiceOver users will pick up their iPhones, and is >>> easier to keep documents in alignment. However, because you're holding the >>> phone this way, and the document has to be in portrait mode, you don't get >>> the full page -- only a section of it. There's no setting to turn flash >>> on, again in the interests of keeping things simple. Unlike Prizmo, >>> TextGrabber, and Perfect OCR, you need to orient the page correctly to get >>> results. The program won't work if the document is upside down or rotated >>> 90 degrees as it will for these other programs. >>> >>> The design philosophy, I believe, is to let people get some results right >>> away. If you don't get results, you simply rotate the page and try again, >>> and because it's relatively fast to navigate the controls, it's not hard to >>> do this. >>> >>> In my estimation, the actual time to OCR is not really faster than with >>> Prizmo. The complication that I believe most people find with Prizmo, >>> apart from having to practice the alignment and holding things flat and in >>> good light, is that there are multiple steps, even though most of this is >>> just double-tapping the "Next" button in the top right corner. And if >>> Prizmo were to implement a "quick process" mode where it assumed all the >>> defaults and that you'd make no changes at all (since you need vision to >>> crop, adjust images, etc.), I bet that would make things a lot easier for >>> VoiceOver users. >>> >>> With Text Detective you still have to hold things flat, aligned, and in >>> good light, but there are fewer steps. It is also more tolerant of slight >>> alignment errors, just as Prizmo is more tolerant of such errors than most >>> OCR programs (believe it or not). >>> >>> For people who are having difficulty pressing the "Start Scan" button in >>> Text Detective while holding the phone flat, try putting your forefinger on >>> the button while you hold the phone in landscape mode with your two hands, >>> but keep your middle finger free. Then, when you have lifted your phone to >>> the correct height, use a split tap with your middle finger to press the >>> button without shaking the phone. >>> >>> I think Text Detective has good features, but won't give full page >>> information in its current mode. By the way, Perfect OCR supports Russian, >>> although I haven't tested that out yet -- just the French. And TextGrabber >>> gives the full range of ABBYY's OCR language support, so should also >>> support Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc. in addition to the above. >>> >>> HTH. Cheers, >>> >>> Esther >>> >>> On Jul 21, 2012, at 10:33 AM, Anne Robertson wrote: >>> >>>> Having looked at the description of this app, I see no reference to other >>>> languages, and yet it is in the French appstore. Does it support any other >>>> languages? >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> >>>> Anne >>>> > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google > Group. > To search the VIPhone public archive, visit > http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. > To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
