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Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

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Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#11

Post by luplex »

feintruled wrote: post #8

Braille is an amazing invention. As a sighted person, my fingers can't differentiate the patterns at all but of course that would come with practice. I worked with a guy once who used a Braille terminal and he was just as fast as anyone else. One thing I always wondered with Braille signage and the like - how do you know it is there to touch it? Is there some convention for placement?

Many blind people have enough residual vision to locate the label, but they can't read text for example.

In Germany, the packaging for medicine features Braille that's hard to miss.

Apart from that, I'm sure there are standards and building codes and such that regulate this.

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#12

Post by luplex »

JeromeLon wrote: post #9
lemper wrote: post #3

it seems like making building an electronic braille display is an interesting side project. i don't know, 30 units of display thingy that sized similar to mahjong tiles, two buttons to change them to "next line" and "prev line", and maybe a raspberry pi and one sdcard for each book maybe enough to build it? of course the difficult part is the "display thingy". not sure if they have it in shenzhen.

Braille displays are pretty common, but awfully expensive. If your side project ends up costing less than $1000, you're on a good track. Most of them are in the $2000-$7000 range, with the exception of Orbit Reader 20 which is only $800 (although many online shops seem to be permanently out of stock, I don't know if it's really sold at that price).

I had a blind classmate back in high school (starting ~2008) who used a laptop and a single-line braille display, and wow I did not know her equipment was that expensive! It just seemed like a reasonably straight-forward piece of hardware to me.

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#13

Post by bluGill »

luplex wrote: post #11
feintruled wrote: post #8

Braille is an amazing invention. As a sighted person, my fingers can't differentiate the patterns at all but of course that would come with practice. I worked with a guy once who used a Braille terminal and he was just as fast as anyone else. One thing I always wondered with Braille signage and the like - how do you know it is there to touch it? Is there some convention for placement?

Many blind people have enough residual vision to locate the label, but they can't read text for example. In Germany, the packaging for medicine features Braille that's hard to miss. Apart from that, I'm sure there are standards and building codes and such that regulate this.

More than 90% of blind people can see the sun. In the us blind means you vision cannot be corrected to better than 20/200, without glasses my vision is worse than that, so if I can do it without glasses some blind can as well. (Of course my vision is correctable to perfection)

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#14

Post by bluGill »

luplex wrote: post #12
JeromeLon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Braille displays are pretty common, but awfully expensive. If your side project ends up costing less than $1000, you're on a good track. Most of them are in the $2000-$7000 range, with the exception of Orbit Reader 20 which is only $800 (although many online shops seem to be permanently out of stock, I don't know if it's really sold at that price).

I had a blind classmate back in high school (starting ~2008) who used a laptop and a single-line braille display, and wow I did not know her equipment was that expensive! It just seemed like a reasonably straight-forward piece of hardware to me.

There isn't enough demand to scale it. If everyone in the world would buy a brail display they could make them for cheap, but only a few buy them, and those buyers need to support all the costs of setting up manufacturing.

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#15

Post by mkoubaa »

lemper wrote: post #7
dale_glass wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display

of course i know. the main point of my previous comment is building one as a side project.

Its been on my back burner for a decade. I think we can do a lot better than the ones on the market. I wrote up an idea I had for it (permissive license, I just want the thing to exist)

https://koubaa.github.io/refreshable-braille-display.html

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#16

Post by ms-fellag »

lemper wrote: post #3

it seems like making building an electronic braille display is an interesting side project. i don't know, 30 units of display thingy that sized similar to mahjong tiles, two buttons to change them to "next line" and "prev line", and maybe a raspberry pi and one sdcard for each book maybe enough to build it? of course the difficult part is the "display thingy". not sure if they have it in shenzhen.

I will preface this by saying that i never built anything related to this, nor am i visually-impaired so take whatever i say with a grain of salt. However i have been interested in the subject on & off for quite sometime following some hype around Braille tablets a decade ago. (which sadly never materialized)

> 30 units of display thingy

They are usually called "Braille Cells" (sometimes called "piezoelectric braille cell") and have 8 dots (instead of the usual 6 for books) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Braille_Code] These cells are comprised of 8 levers. The "Dot" rises when a voltage is applied to a crystal that expands due to the piezo effect/bimorph.

Here is a video of someone taking apart a couple of them and showing the insides, driver etc.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmwFsTLkpa8 (it's not an in-depth look but just to get an idea)

You can read about how it works in more details here : https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/9307/InTech-Analysis_and_des...

Okay now what? Well you could acquire some from ebay like this one i guess https://www.ebay.com/itm/255908240759?hash=item3b9551dd77

Or try to find something from Metec, i have seen their P20 as well as the B11 Module used with arduino projects several times, here is the website https://metec-ag.de/en/produkte-braille-module.php

They also sell "Braille Lines" which are combos : cells + backpanel/driver : https://metec-ag.de/en/produkte-braille-zeilen.php (If you find a way to buy them i would greatly appreciate you sharing it)

PS : These cells use 200V DC to work so your project will need a DC-DC converter. You can search for similar speccs to the official one on aliexpress or whatever https://metec-ag.de/downloads/dcdc-converter-5to200v.pdf

Finally you would need a brain for all this which could be the raspi directly or you might opt for using the raspberry-pi (for the ebook manipulation, character-to-dot conversion etc.. unless you decide to pre-format the files) in conjunction with an arduino (for the signal transfer/propagation.. you know sending the dot configuration)

Take a look here for some software inspiration (it also explains the signals the braille module would be expecting but you are better off looking at the Datasheet for anything serious): https://github.com/bertrandmartel/metec-braille-driver#more-...

Good luck.

---- Some more resources :

A nice video from "Applied Science" about a one Cell driver DIY project (He is i believe, using the P16 cell from metec) might help you decide whether to buy a backplane-driver or make your own [also the idea of putting a push-button underneath the braille-cell might be interesting to you for a selection mechanism maybe?] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss-Fux86doQ

A video showing Metic P20 cells + backpanel + DC step-up converter driven by an Arduino Uno (it has no value other than to hopefully encourage you to pursue this project :D ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zqth08wQBs

Designing Braille System using P20 Braille Cells Presentation (a student project i think with a good overview of the minimum necessary parts and their functions you can skip to the 5min mark to avoid the usual academia-fluff) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAYB0g6LhVM

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#18

Post by richiebful1 »

feintruled wrote: post #8

Braille is an amazing invention. As a sighted person, my fingers can't differentiate the patterns at all but of course that would come with practice. I worked with a guy once who used a Braille terminal and he was just as fast as anyone else. One thing I always wondered with Braille signage and the like - how do you know it is there to touch it? Is there some convention for placement?

The Guide to ADA Standards provides some info:

> The required location of tactile signs is relatively uniform (i.e., beside or, where permitted, on doors) to make them easier to locate without vision. The height is limited to a specific range (48 inches – 60 inches) to facilitate reading by touch.

So a blind person touches a door frame, and gets a cue to feel for a sign.

https://www.access-board.gov/ada/guides/chapter-7-signs/

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#19

Post by clavoie »

Anyone has any recommendations for a cheap braille display and can explain quick quick how it integrates in a programmer's workflow? I'm an EMACS user, I've seen a bunch of packages that integrate with BRLTTY, but I'm curious what's the day-to-day.

I'm not blind, so this shouldn't be something that'll take away from someone with a real need; this is just one nerd's attempt at learning another (practically speaking, useless to me) skill for the sake of learning. I've already glued braille stickers on my normal keyboard, but they don't last, on that side I'm already considering DIY keys, maybe from a 3d printing shop online.

I've looked at a few online and the prices are in the range where I can't justify it just a fun learning experience, so I'm considering a DIY approach, but that seems equally if not more fraught with difficulties. Thoughts?

Re: Braille Is Alive, Well, and Ever-Evolving

#20

Post by devinprater »

I love that more operating systems, like Android, are beginning, as of like last year or so, to take Braille seriously. In the US, the National Library service for the blind (and print disabled) are rolling out a service where Braille readers get a free Braille display, a device which connects to a screen reader on a device to offer Braille input and output. The Braille display they're giving out can also download and display books from their service. The display I got, one by a company called Humanware, uses the Braille HID protocol, which Apple readily accepted and implemented, along with NVDA, and I think BRLTTY. NVDA is a screen reader on Windows, and BRLTTY is a cross platform but mostly Linux screen reader that mainly works with Braille instead of speech.

So, The NLS EReader as they're called works pretty well with the iPhone and Mac, NVDA, JAWS, BRLTTY, and the Chromebook. But it wasn't until a few weeks ago, when the TalkBack folks released their six-month-update, did TalkBack even support the NLS EReader... over USB. Apparently, the Bluetooth stack has to be substantially changed to allow Braille HID over Bluetooth. So yeah, Apple has the advantage of supporting this thing for a few years, although there are definitely bugs. Hopefully, as these devices become much more prominent in the US, screen readers will try to grab onto the fact that many more people have Braille.

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