Clearspeech: A Display Reader for the Visually Handicapped

Many domestic appliances and much office equipment is controlled using a keypad and a small digital display. Programming such devices is problematical for the blind and visually handicapped. In this paper, we describe a device that may be used to read the displays on these devices. The device is designed to accept a description of the display being read, which specifies the types and locations of elements of the display. Images are captured using a handheld webcam. Images are processed to remove the distortions due to the camera orientation. The elements of the screen are interpreted and a suitable audio output is generated. In suitably illuminated scenes, the display data is interpreted correctly in approximately 90% of the cases investigated

许多家用电器和大量办公设备是通过小键盘和小型数字显示屏来控制的。对盲人和视力有障碍的人来说，给这类设备编程是有问题的。在本文中，我们描述了一种可用于读取这些设备上显示屏内容的装置。该装置被设计为能够接收所读取显示屏的描述信息，其中规定了显示屏各元素的类型和位置。使用手持网络摄像头采集图像。对图像进行处理以消除因摄像头方向导致的变形。对屏幕上的元素进行解读，并生成合适的音频输出。在光照合适的场景下，在所研究的大约90%的案例中，显示屏数据都能被正确解读。