Output details

Relaying scene information to the blind via sound using cartoon depth maps

Scene information may be relayed to a blind person via mobility aids that incorporate an image-to-sound mapping. Stereo depth maps are considered as a means of reducing the quantity of unnecessary information passed to the listener. The paper describes how a stereo edge depth map can be combined with a cartoon-like scene representation to reduce the data. Experimental results are included that demonstrate the effectiveness of this representation. Since publication, the method has been incorporated into a device called the vOICe created by Peter Meijer (http://www.seeingwithsound.com/).