Pictures in Your Mind

Abstract

Tactile reliefs offer many benefits over the more classic raised line drawings or tactile diagrams, as depth, 3D shape, and surface textures are directly perceivable. Although often created for blind and visually impaired (BVI) people, a wider range of people may benefit from such multimodal material. However, some reliefs are still difficult to understand without proper guidance or accompanying verbal descriptions, hindering autonomous exploration. In this work, we present a gesture-controlled interactive audio guide (IAG) based on recent low-cost depth cameras that can be operated directly with the hands on relief surfaces during tactile exploration. The interactively explorable, location-dependent verbal and captioned descriptions promise rapid tactile accessibility to 2.5D spatial information in a home or education setting, to online resources, or as a kiosk installation at public places. We present a working prototype, discuss design decisions, and present the results of two evaluation studies: the first with 13 BVI test users and the second follow-up study with 14 test users across a wide range of people with differences and difficulties associated with perception, memory, cognition, and communication. The participant-led research method of this latter study prompted new, significant and innovative developments. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → User studies; Gestural input; Accessibility systems and tools; Auditory feedback; • Applied computing → Fine arts;

Symmetrical Patterns of Ainu Heritage and Their Virtual and Physical Prototyping

“…The digital technology called reverse engineering [16] has been extensively used in cultural artifact preservation and prototyping [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] because it (reverse engineering) helps create digital or geometric models of existing physical objects when these models (digital or geometric models) are unavailable. In most cases, reverse engineering uses scanning (e.g., [19,20] or image processing [18] techniques to extract the shape, topological, and texture information of an existing physical object.…”

“…The reported patterns exhibit symmetry that can be analyzed using some simple geometric entities, namely, segments of intersecting circles ("vesical piscis"), construction based on equilateral triangles and vesical piscis, construction based on hexagons, construction based on "four circles over one," equilateral triangles, isosceles triangles, equilateral triangles, right angle triangles, regular hexagons, regular pentagons, "5-4-3 triangles," construction based on 36 degree isosceles triangles, equilateral triangle grids, regular hexagon grids, squire grids, square and root triangles, construction based on the golden section triangle and diagonal of a rectangle, whirling square rectangles, squares with Brune's startype divisions, and Brune's stars with intersections [2] (pp. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]34). In addition, such simple operations as translation, two-fold rotation, reflection, and glide-reflection applied to the abovementioned geometric entities can create patterns that are often seen in the cultural artifacts of the abovementioned civilizations [2].…”

Multi-Sensory Color Code Based on Sound and Scent for Visual Art Appreciation

“…The directivity of a scent is calculated by aggregating the evaluations for each of the semantic adjectives of the test users grouped by dimension and choosing the dimension with the largest magnitude. [67] Caramel [39] Eucalyptus [73] Vanilla [26] Eucalyptus [49] Vanilla [17] Apple [64] Chocolate [9] * Selected candidate to represent the corresponding color dimension. Each cell describes the scent candidate and directivity magnitude.…”

“…Although access to artistic culture prevents the isolation and fosters the proper functioning of visually impaired and blind people in society and communication [3], there is a limited amount of research regarding the development of assistive technology to access visual artworks contents. Traditionally, access to visual artworks by blind and visually impaired people has been made possible through accessible tours and workshops [4,5], audio guides [6], Braille leaflets with embossed tactile diagrams [7], tactile 3D models [8], and, more recently, by interactive interfaces that provide rich and location-based information through multiple sensory channels [9][10][11][12][13]. However, these methods fail to facilitate experiencing the artwork's color contents.…”

Contemporary Trends in the Accessibility of Cultural Facilities, Based on the Example of Barcelona

“…Realised research on the accessibility of cultural facilities focusses on the transspatial, sensory or intellectual level. Furthermore, there is an evolution of the transmission towards increased accessibility for people with learning disabilities (Hayhoe, S., 2019;Reichinger, A., 2018). The literature review presented by Munch et al (Munch et al 2022) clarifies the criteria included in the accessibility guidelines for museum facilities, divided into elements related to orientation and navigating the facility.…”