28809033_RESEARCH_NOTEBOOK

3D Printing and Low Cost Electronics

Introduction

Vision impaired people have a different perception of the world. We met up with Matthew Butler, who will be supervising our work throughout the semester.

Matthew introduced us to several things we take for granted that vision imparied people struggle with in various aspects of daily lives.

Education

Many students have trouble understanding visual content in the lectures. The current process is to send off the visuals to be meta-tagged so that students with vision impaired can be able to engage with it. However, the process is time consuming and very subjective; the meta tags accuracy and detail depends on the mercy of the reviewer.

There is a push for accessible education environment, hence there is a lot of scope for the project.

Orientation and Mobility (Transport)

Getting around a city independently is one of the most important thing that a vision imparied person wants to do. Public transport places like train stations can be really confusing to navigate. Hence, there is lots of demand for 3D Models that can improve orientation and mobility in the scope of public transport. There are several methods that can be used to create 3D informative maps. 3D printing or 3D tactile maps.

There is scope to investigate and improve O&M, by constructing better 3D Maps and possibly integrating low cost electronics to enhance interactivity.

Cultural

The Bendigo Art Gallery is looking to improve its collection to make it more accessible for the vision impaired. 3D tactile recreation, sound-version of the painting to create an atmosphere and magnification are several methods being utlised. It’s about providing an inclusive experience for all citizens, hence a big emphasis needs to be placed on the problems for the vision impaired.

Reflection

We met up with the supervisor and learnt about the segment of people who struggle with everyday things that we take for granted. It highlighted the importance of inclusiveness and motivated me lots to research to improve lives of people with vision impairment.

We have had a think about the opportunities for the project and have come up with an interesting basic idea for the project. Our focus will be to integrate low cost electronics and have smartphone connectivity with a model of a place to create interactive content that will help vision impaired people better understand their surroundings.

Me and my research partner are really excited about the project, as certain aspects are in our interst and fields of expertise united by the drive to help the vision impaired people. We are really inclided towards modelling a train station to improve O&M for the vision impaired. It is something we both find comforable to use our skills upon.

It is about the marriage of 3D Models and smartphones. Parth’s expertise lies in 3D printing and electronics. My experise lies in smartphone apps. We’re hoping to utilize both skill sets to create something new, helpful and interactive.