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Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#11

Post by lrasinen »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #5

Fantastic effort, but oddly and almost shockingly archaic. This is seriously the way the problem is being solved? Why isn’t it microelectronics or MEMS? If we can print 3μm OLED pixels surely there’s a way to lift a discrete 1.6mm dot, especially with that huge 2.5mm spacing. Even adjacent dots ought to be no big deal. Maybe a haptic kludge or grid of air pressure nozzles? I have a personal theory of invention that s…

Seems to be £12k, so not cheap: https://www.visionaid.co.uk/dot-pad

I was thinking if the dots need individual actuators. I'm old enough to remember dot-matrix printers; take the print head but put slightly beefier pins on it, move it left and right and use it to push metal spheres up in a hour-glass shaped cavity, with springy walls in the center section.

Obvious problems: how do you reset the spheres? And wear issues.

Edit: You could replace the hourglass throat with a plug valve (shared between pins). Print head comes along, turns the valve open, pushes the necessary balls up, closes valve, moves to next column. Needs more mechanics per cell, though.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#12

Post by mwcampbell »

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Braille was designed for paper. Maybe there's an interface that is easier to actuate using motors if you don't absolutely require it to be Braille.

Braille was designed by a blind person to be easily read by touch. Let's not throw that away. At the very least, an alternative tactile reading system needs to be designed by one or more blind people, not imposed by sighted people like the systems that Braille superseded.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#14

Post by anfractuosity »

donatj wrote: post #9

Dumb question. Could one instead go with some sort of inflatable system? Thin layer of plastic with some controllable channels. Inflate the individual dots? There was an early smartphone that had a system like this for tactile feedback, I don’t know if it ever went into production.

Very good question, just came across - https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2106553118 which seems designed for braille.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#15

Post by eternauta3k »

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Braille was designed for paper. Maybe there's an interface that is easier to actuate using motors if you don't absolutely require it to be Braille.

I often wonder how much productivity we're leaving on the table by not making systems that are harder to learn but more efficient.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#17

Post by atoav »

HappyPanacea wrote: post #16

Considering the human finger is very sensitive to texture perhaps there is a material that change its texture in response to voltage?

Why not just use mechanically decoupled pins that vibrate with a smartphone vibration motor? You don't need texture if the thing vibrates.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#19

Post by nolist_policy »

gostsamo wrote: post #2

As someone blind, my two pens are that noise, power consumption, and fragility are things that could be compromised to a large degree. If I've had a braille display at school and uni, it would've helped with many of my math issues. If it works and it is cheap, it would be a big step forward for many people. Power is not that expensive compared to the current displays, noise could be mitegated or just powered through,…

I wonder if one could combine a low-fidelity braille display (maybe with heat or vibration (piezoelectricity)) with touch sensitivity and context-sensitive tts in response to touching/reading the display.

Re: Affordable Wheel Based Refreshable Braille Display

#20

Post by IshKebab »

mwcampbell wrote: post #12
IshKebab wrote: post #3

Braille was designed for paper. Maybe there's an interface that is easier to actuate using motors if you don't absolutely require it to be Braille.

Braille was designed by a blind person to be easily read by touch. Let's not throw that away. At the very least, an alternative tactile reading system needs to be designed by one or more blind people, not imposed by sighted people like the systems that Braille superseded.

I'm not sure what you're responding to here. Of course I wasn't suggesting making a system that is hard to read by touch. And it doesn't matter if the creator can see or not if it is better than the alternatives.
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