Research on development of technologies to reduce the barrier of visual information for aimed to assist learning of visually impaired students

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18H01058
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 09070:Educational technology-related
• Research Institution: Toyama Prefectural University
• Principal Investigator: Takagi Noboru 富山県立大学, 工学部, 教授 (50236197)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 荒木 智行 広島工業大学, 工学部, 教授 (20257413) ; 鈴木 貴 広島工業大学, 工学部, 教授 (40289260)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 福祉情報工学 / アクセシビリティ / 視覚障害者 / 学習支援 / 応用情報 / パターン認識

Outline of Final Research Achievements

It is essential to use visual information when studying the STEM subjects in order to construct understanding physics phenomena etc., but it is difficult for blind people to access such visual information. Therefore, we have studied the following research issues. The first issue was the development of line drawing pattern recognition, in which we have developed a recognition method as an elementary technology for automatically generating tactile graphics from printed/handwritten drawings. Next, we have developed an audio assisted tactile graphics systems using smartphones, which enables blind people to access tactile graphics easily. Third, we have prototyped a speaker array system which consists of 64 loud speakers arranged on a rectangle. We have then conducted a basic experiment to clarify how accurately a moving sound of a line-drawing/object-movement could be recognized. The results suggest that blind people could be access visual information using both touch and audition.

Free Research Field

福祉情報工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

線図形のパターン認識では，畳み込みニューラルネットワーク（CNN）を応用した技術開発を行った．線図形は，CNNが良く応用される一般物体画像と異なり，無地の背景に疎な前景で構成されるため新しいCNNを構築した．更に，視覚障害者でも利用可能な新しいオブジェクト指向型図形図形記述言語を試作した．視覚障害者が視覚情報へアクセスするには，触図の利用がほとんどである．即ち，触覚のみで図へアクセスしなければならない．これに対し，我々は聴覚による視覚情報へのアクセスを検討し，その可能性を示した．以上が学術的意義の概要である．また，視覚障害者の支援を目的とした研究のため社会的意義は大きいと言える．