Tactile Maps Research Articles

Development of the Tactile Map Creator (TMC) Application

There are multiple studies demonstrating that 3D printed maps are important to people with blindness. When designed properly, they help users by improving safety and mobility and allow people with blindness to efficiently learn spatial information from the map and plan their travel prior to navigation. However, tactile maps are still not widely among people with blindness, as they are not readily available to them. Creating maps for each person needing a map of a certain location currently requires help from an individual with advanced technical training. They need to use specialized software for 3D models that personnel from disability services and family members of people with blindness usually have no experience with. The goal of this research is to design and implement software that can be used for the automatic generation of maps and be accessible to the general public. Our hypothesis is that by automating all the challenging steps (generation of the 3D model and drawing of optimally designed symbols), this will lead to increased usability and acceptance. Here, we demonstrated an early prototype and evaluated our hypothesis in a user study. To assess the success of this approach, participants answered questions about the process, usability, and social impacts of the software. Overall, participants liked the application because it was easy to use and allowed them to create custom maps with appropriate tactile-encoding features that provide meaningful information to the end user.

Interactive Design of 3D -Tactile Map for Visual Impairment people

on maps. In general, the map can only be used by users who are can see visually and blind people have difficulty reading the map because there is no map for the visual impairment in 3D. This map has the advantage of being printable so that it is easy to understand and use for blind users. Amid the development of the map, the authors developed a 3D interactive map design that can accommodate the needs of blind users. This development is generated from DSM data through aerial surveys using drones altered to produce a smoother surface so that it can be reconstructed into a 3D design and analysis of the level of texture density and the level of conformity to the real or original shape and reconstruction using aims to improve and model. Shape to fit the 3-dimensional printing process. The voice module is installed using the RFID Tag identification that is embedded in the 3D map and the RFID Reader in the user's hand, with voice data processing. This innovation that has been developed has the advantage of having a 3-dimensional shape that can be felt, texture, shape, and height equipped with braille-shaped markings that are specially made using Riglet for easy reading and sound as a support to improve the blind's people spatial understanding and spatial literacy.

Concept for the historic parks' tactile maps development

Concept for the historic parks' tactile maps development

Thematic Tactile Cartography: Evaluating Tactile Mapping Techniques for Novel Applications

Thematic Tactile Cartography: Evaluating Tactile Mapping Techniques for Novel Applications

Novel Cartographical Designs for Blind and Partially Impaired Students in Kurdistan

Abstract. It is understood that all human beings need information, including spatial (geospatial) information. It has to be noted that spatial and geospatial information helps people to enrich the knowledge about certain regions. In general, the knowledge is very significant for strengthening orientation ability, which, in turn, affects the level of intelligence. It is believed that the better a person can recognize geographical information the cleverer s/he is. Being able to have the spatial knowledge helps humans to fulfil their basic needs and find solutions to various problems. Present research uses Geographical Information System (GIS) to create paper maps, which can be transferred onto a touch display where the user can choose different keys and settings (such as colour, measurement, etc.) to represent different forms of data. The study aims to examine the effectiveness of digital interactive cartographical novel solutions in improving text and space memorization among visually impaired Kurdish students. The study’s purpose draws from the knowledge that Kurdistan learners and other demographic groups lack an effective multimodal communication map suited to contemporary society’s demands. The research seeks to fill the gap by presenting a strategy for developing interactive tactile maps for the target group to solve the growing problem of visual impairment in Kurdistan. Technologies associated with tactile maps are reviewed and the application of interactive tactile maps for populations, in addition to those who are visually impaired, is also considered. The obtained results are very useful for blind and low sighted users to communicate information through the assistive technologies on the map due to finding the geographical location easily.

Texture-based Intraoperative Image Guidance for Tumor Localization in Minimally Invasive Surgery.

Intraoperative tumor localization in a deflated lung in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is challenging as the lung cannot be manually palpated through small incisions. To do so remotely, an articulated multisensory imaging device combining tactile and ultrasound sensors was developed. It visualizes the surface tactile map and the depth of the tissue. However, with little maneuverability in MIS, localizing tumors using instrumented palpation is both tedious and inefficient. In this paper, a texture- based image guidance system that classifies tactile-guided ultrasound texture regions and provides beliefs on their types is proposed. The resulting interactive feedback allows directed palpation in MIS. A k-means classifier is used to first cluster gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM)-based texture features of the ultrasound regions, followed by hidden Markov model-based belief propagation to establish confidence about the clustered features observing repeated patterns. When the beliefs converge, the system autonomously detects tumor and nontumor textures. The approach was tested on 20 ex vivo soft tissue specimens in a staged MIS. The results showed that with guidance, tumors in MIS could be localized with 98% accuracy, 99% sensitivity, and 97% specificity.Clinical Relevance- Texture-based image guidance adds efficiency and control to instrumented palpation in MIS. It renders fluidity and accuracy in image acquisition using a hand-held device where fatigue from prolonged handling affects imaging quality.

Perspectives about implementation of colour codes on maps accessible to blind people

ABSTRACT Tactile colour codes or tactile symbols were developed for communicating colours to blind people. Initially, these colour codes were designed to enable blind or visually impaired people to choose their own clothes and learn colour theory. The objective of this research is to investigate the perspectives of geoinformation professionals on the viability of implementing colour codes on thematic tactile maps using only the graphic primitive area. Thus, geoinformation professionals were invited to express their perspectives on ten colour code systems during and after the “I Workshop Usability 4 All”, which took place during the “XI Brazilian Colloquium on Geodetic Sciences”, Brazil, 2020. The results indicated that there is no consensus on which system is more appropriate for experimentation on tactile maps. However, Feelipa Color and See Color were the systems that showed the greatest potential as six participants preferred the first and five preferred the latter. This is associated with the fact that both systems were classified as relatively viable or potentially viable for implementation in the primitive area, considering the aspects of Drawing, Dimensions and Intuitiveness.

Seamless Wayfinding by a Deafblind Adult on an Urban College Campus: A Case Study on Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, and Technology Requirements

This article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map. A convergent parallel mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize insights from a pre-travel questionnaire, route travel video recordings, post-travel questionnaire, and post-travel interview. Our results indicate that wayfinding performance and confidence differed considerably between the three wayfinding support tools. The tactile map afforded the most successful wayfinding and highest confidence. Wayfinding performance and confidence were lowest for the mobile application modality. The simplicity of use of a wayfinding tool is paramount for reducing cognitive load during wayfinding. In addition, information that does not match individual, user-specific information preferences and needs inhibits wayfinding performance. Current practice pertaining to the representation of digital spatial data only marginally accounts for the complexity of pedestrian human wayfinding across the gamut of visual impairment, blindness, and deafblindness. Robust orientation and mobility training and skills remain key for negotiating unexpected or adverse wayfinding situations and scenarios, irrespective of the use of a wayfinding tool. A substantial engagement of the deafblind community in both research and development is critical for achieving universal and equitable usability of mobile wayfinding technology.

Crosstalk-Free, Stretching-Insensitive Sensor Based on Arch-Bridge Architecture for Tactile Mapping with Parallel Addressing Strategy toward Million-Scale-Pixels Processing.

In the field of biomimetic electronics, flexible sensors with both high resolution and large size are attracting a lot of attention. However, attempts to increase the number of sensor pixels have been thwarted by the need for complex inner circuits and the resulting interferences with the output. Technological challenges, such as real‐time spatiotemporal mapping and long‐time reliability, must be resolved for large‐scale sensor matrices. This paper reports a simple and robust sensor with an arch‐bridge architecture (ABA) to address these challenges. The device, which consists of an anti‐icing all‐transparent material system, is fabricated by immobilizing ABA ionic arrays on predefined grooves on the substrate. It systematically integrates ABA structure‐designing, resistance‐position‐sensing, and parallel‐addressing logic, allowing for an improvement of three orders of magnitude in the scanning speed (million‐scale pixels) without logical “diagnose confusion.” In addition, it can withstand 100 000 stretching cycles without functional failure. It is also resistant to interferences from stretching. humidity, wet surfaces, and power lines. The proposed strategy is envisaged to serve as a general solution for high‐density, large‐area tactile sensors in various applications.

Creating Tactile Educational Materials for the Visually Impaired and Blind Students Using AI Cloud Computing

There are 24.5 million visually impaired and blind (VIB) students who have limited access to educational materials due to cost or availability. Although advancement in technology is prevalent, providing individualized learning using technology remains a challenge without the proper tools or experience. The TacPic system was developed as an online platform to create tactile educational materials (TEM) based on the image inputs of users who do not have prior experience in tactile photo development or 3D printing. The TacPic system allows the users to simply upload images to a website and uses AI cloud computing on the Amazon Web Services platform. First, it segments and labels the images. Then, the text label is converted into braille words. Subsequently, surface rendering and consolidation of the image and text is performed, before it is converted into a single file that is ready for 3D printing. Currently, the types of TEM that can be created are tactile flashcards, tactile maps, and tactile peg puzzles, which can be developed within a few hours. This is in contrast to a development period of weeks using traditional methods. Furthermore, the tactile educational materials were tested by two VIB teachers and six VIB students. It was found that those who are congenitally blind need more time to identify the object and rely more on the braille labels compared to students who became blind at a later age. Teachers also suggested producing TEM that use simpler images, and TEM that are suitable for both sighted and VIB students. In conclusion, the researchers successfully developed a platform that allows more educators or parents to develop personalized and individualized TEM. In the future, further optimization of the algorithms to improve segmentation and the inclusion of other features, such as color, could be undertaken. Finally, new printing materials and methods are needed to improve printing efficiency.

Efficient Interactive Tactile Maps: A Semi-Automated Workflow Using the TouchIt3D Technology and OpenStreetMap Data

Despite the growing efficiency of the map-design process in general, tactile mapping has remained peripheral to mainstream cartography. For a specific group of people with visual impairment, however, tactile maps are the only effective way to obtain a complex idea about the geospatial distribution of the surrounding world. As there are numerous specifics in creating these 3D maps and only a limited group of users, tactile products have usually been either very simple creations or, on the other hand, difficult and expensive to produce. Modern trends and progress in the availability of new technologies (e.g., 3D printing) bring new possibilities for keeping tactile map production both effective and up to date. Therefore, this paper aims to present a methodology to apply the TouchIt3D technology to link 3D-printed multi-material tactile maps with a mobile device. Utilizing this solution resulted in a set of interactive tactile maps following current trends of inclusive education. Using OpenStreetMap data together with a semi-automated workflow significantly lowered expenses compared to antecedent maps with similar functionality. A semi-automated workflow was designed, focusing on three use cases of independent movement: walking, using public transport, and tourism.

Cognitive map formation through haptic and visual exploration of tactile city-like maps

In this study, we compared cognitive map formation of small-scale models of city-like environments presented in visual or tactile/haptic modalities. Previous research often addresses only a limited amount of cognitive map aspects. We wanted to combine several of these aspects to elucidate a more complete view. Therefore, we assessed different types of spatial information, and consider egocentric as well as allocentric perspectives. Furthermore, we compared haptic map learning with visual map learning. In total 18 sighted participants (9 in a haptic condition, 9 visuo-haptic) learned three tactile maps of city-like environments. The maps differed in complexity, and had five marked locations associated with unique items. Participants estimated distances between item pairs, rebuilt the map, recalled locations, and navigated two routes, after learning each map. All participants overall performed well on the spatial tasks. Interestingly, only on the complex maps, participants performed worse in the haptic condition than the visuo-haptic, suggesting no distinct advantage of vision on the simple map. These results support ideas of modality-independent representations of space. Although it is less clear on the more complex maps, our findings indicate that participants using only haptic or a combination of haptic and visual information both form a quite accurate cognitive map of a simple tactile city-like map.

Tactile Maps and New Technologies for Blind and People with Visual Impairments

Until recently, the medical model of disability has dominated, but times and views change so that the model of social inclusion is now the guideline. It is therefore the broad acceptance of the social model of disability that leads to these changes and assistive technology is the main tool that allows social inclusion. In this paper an attempt is made to investigate greek and international bibliography regarding the design, the use and the effectiveness of haptic maps. This bibliographic research is divided into two main parts, each of whom divided into sub-chapters. The first part includes definitions and researches related to the structure, form and operation of the tactile maps and, more generally, of the individual characteristics taken into account in their creation. In the second part, there is a brief presentation of the new technologies for the blind and visually impaired people.

Principles of drawing up and possibilities of using tactile maps in teaching geography

Principles of drawing up and possibilities of using tactile maps in teaching geography

Tactile cartography in the digital age: A review and research agenda

Spatial media for people who are blind or visually impaired (B/VI) have evolved considerably in the years following Chris Perkins’ review of tactile map research, especially due to the proliferation of Internet access, mobile computing, and GPS technology. Reviewing intervening research, I identify prevailing themes in cartographic data management, media production, map design, and map use. I then propose a research agenda that identifies four high-priority topics for investigation: research conducted by people who are B/VI, maps created by people who are B/VI, low-tech tactile mapping, and social dynamics of tactile map use and production.

AN EXPERIMENT USING THE GRAPHIC VARIABLE COLOR AND THE SEE COLOR CODE ON ISARITHMIC MAPS ACCESSIBLE TO BLIND AND NORMALLY SIGHTED PEOPLE

Abstract: The See Color is a color coding system based on Braille writing to communicate colors to people with visual impairments. This study assessed the perception of the theme Temperature by blind people, by using the See Color code on two isarithmic tactile maps and the perception of subjects with normal color vision. An average temperature map of Australia had 10 classes, but these intervals were regrouped into four classes on Corel Draw software. The new map was duplicated in the digital project in A4 size, both included the See Color code in two color schemes obtained from the Color Brewer website. Subsequently, they were laser-printed on swell paper to produce the tactile relief. The chromatic perception was observed, as well as the thermal sensations that the colors could represent for blind participants (06), normally sighted participants in basic education (23), and normally sighted participants in higher education (20). In this research, the See Color code showed the potential to provide spatial knowledge as a graphic language through colors in color maps for adventitiously blind and for normally sighted participants based on their perception of colors and tactile color codes.

Enhancing the Usability of Tactile Map for the Visually Impaired

Assistive technology is initiated to aid those visually impaired to fulfil their tasks independently, rapidly, and easily. As such, tactile map is an assistive technology that has been widely used for navigation to enable those visually impaired to visualize the geographical information about a particular place. Nevertheless, its usability and availability in Malaysia are scant. This paper aims to investigate the usability issues of tactile map, identify the requirements and proposed a conceptual prototype named TacTalk. Qualitative research method in the form of face to face interviews were carried out with the visually impaired residing at Saint Nicholas’ Home for the Blind in Penang. Results from the findings identified four emerging usability issues: poor design of tactile map due to limited space, misinterpretation of information, complexity of symbols used and difficulty in memorizing directions. The proposed solution, ‘TacTalk’, refers to a ‘talking tactile map’ incorporated with audio support. TacTalk is comprised of two components, which are: a tactile map with built-in buttons, and a mobile application that plays the audio files. There is a connection between the buttons on the map and the TacTalk mobile application via Bluetooth. An audio instruction is played when the button is pressed by the user. The results of this work hope to overcome the fear of the visually impaired to travel alone. Hopefully, it can inspire and empower them to explore the use of assistive technology in future.

The Information Value of Tactile Maps: A Comparison of Maps Printed with the Use of Different Techniques

ABSTRACT Visually impaired people use tactile maps that can be read by the sense of touch or, to a limited extent, with their eyes. This article concerns the methods of assessing tactile maps in terms of their information value. In the research, methods used to assess traditional maps have been adopted to assess tactile maps. Tactile elements of two maps – one developed with the use of traditional methods and the second developed with the use of 3D printing – have been compared. Structural measures of information as well as the information efficiency coefficient of each map have been determined to assess whether new cartographic symbols proposed on a multi-level 3D printed map can increase its information value.

A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY OF GRAPHIC VARIABLES USED ON TACTILE MAPS

Abstract. Tactile maps are accessible for visually impaired people. Therefore, studies on the use of graphic variables in tactile cartography are necessary. A search for papers related to the keyword "tactile map" was conducted in the Scopus database and in the annals of the International Cartographic Conference, between the years 2009 and 2019, with the objective of identifying in the international literature the topics concerning to graphic variables, especially those related to color code systems. Among the full manuscripts found in the Scopus and International Cartographic Association databases, the countries with the largest number of publications in the tactile cartography field were Brazil, United States, Greece, Spain and Germany. The main topics related to tactile maps in the last 10 years were: visual impairment, navigation and wayfinding, perception, universal design, among others. Some of the papers suggest the representation of colors for colorblind people, but there is a gap regarding the use of color codes as graphic variables on tactile maps.

INFERRING THE SCALE AND CONTENT OF A MAP USING DEEP LEARNING

Abstract. Visually impaired people cannot use classical maps but can learn to use tactile relief maps. These tactile maps are crucial at school to learn geography and history as well as the other students. They are produced manually by professional transcriptors in a very long and costly process. A platform able to generate tactile maps from maps scanned from geography textbooks could be extremely useful to these transcriptors, to fasten their production. As a first step towards such a platform, this paper proposes a method to infer the scale and the content of the map from its image. We used convolutional neural networks trained with a few hundred maps from French geography textbooks, and the results show promising results to infer labels about the content of the map (e.g. ”there are roads, cities and administrative boundaries”), and to infer the extent of the map (e.g. a map of France or of Europe).