Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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what are some inconvenient problems you face in your daily lives? (self.Blind)
submitted by MarciousHD
I need ideas to form a solution to improve the life of the blind for my school assignment.
bradley22 8 points 5y ago
I'd recommend researching what's already out there. Apps, devices, et cetra, and then trying to think of something you can do better than all of that stuff.
cae_jones 6 points 5y ago
Dropping tiny things. These are almost always food (nuts, chocolate chips). These are too small to be easily found via the normal find-a-dropped-item techniques that I'm familiar with, they tumble and bounce enough that they're hard to track based on their last known orientation or sound, and if not recovered, they're a beacon to pests. The best I can come up with is an app that tries to present the position of the most likely small object that the camera can see in positional audio, but that's a hard problem because of things like patterns in the flooring, shadows in the carpet, shadows from above, and if you're particularly unlucky, the afore-mentioned pests. And, well, odds are that if you're close enough for the camera to find it, you're close enough for your hands to find it.
somewhoever 3 points 5y ago
I think you're onto something, but I'd like to add an idea that might help with the camera having problems because of patterns on the flooring and the shadows.
A great LPT that the sighted use to find small objects that fall on the floor is to put your cheek to the ground and watch across the surface while shining a flashlight that is lying on the floor next to your head and sweeping it back and forth.
This would be easy to mimic with a smart phone by having you place the phone's edge against the ground and having you sweep the camera's view across the top of the ground while the LED flashlight is on. It would use a very similar principle as that explained above.
Since your camera is looking across the floor, any patterns visible from above are effectively erased. Tiny objects become much more pronounced. As long as you don't have deep or medium pile carpet, the object could still very well be identifiable even on carpet.
Once a lost-object candidate is found, a hotter/colder hum or tone could start playing that gets most distinctive when the object is centered in the camera as you sweep.
Then you start sliding the camera in the indicated direction of the object. If you start to stray from keeping the object centered, the continuous hum will guide you back on course. Keep sliding toward the object with the object centered until the camera perceives that the object is within a couple inches (maybe when it suddenly disappears under the camera's view because the camera window is actually a few millimeters above the edge that is sliding along the floor) and you hear a distinctive beep.
Then you just tap a few inches in front of the camera with your hand to see if you found what you are looking for.
Edit: Also, I just remembered that you could point your camera down at the ground while sweeping a shining a flashlight across the floor and the camera will eventually see an extended shadow created by the object.
Just my two cents. Best of luck on eventually finding a solution!
A great LPT that the sighted use to find small objects that fall on the floor is to put your cheek to the ground and watch across the surface while shining a flashlight that is lying on the floor next to your head and sweeping it back and forth.
This would be easy to mimic with a smart phone by having you place the phone's edge against the ground and having you sweep the camera's view across the top of the ground while the LED flashlight is on. It would use a very similar principle as that explained above.
Since your camera is looking across the floor, any patterns visible from above are effectively erased. Tiny objects become much more pronounced. As long as you don't have deep or medium pile carpet, the object could still very well be identifiable even on carpet.
Once a lost-object candidate is found, a hotter/colder hum or tone could start playing that gets most distinctive when the object is centered in the camera as you sweep.
Then you start sliding the camera in the indicated direction of the object. If you start to stray from keeping the object centered, the continuous hum will guide you back on course. Keep sliding toward the object with the object centered until the camera perceives that the object is within a couple inches (maybe when it suddenly disappears under the camera's view because the camera window is actually a few millimeters above the edge that is sliding along the floor) and you hear a distinctive beep.
Then you just tap a few inches in front of the camera with your hand to see if you found what you are looking for.
Edit: Also, I just remembered that you could point your camera down at the ground while sweeping a shining a flashlight across the floor and the camera will eventually see an extended shadow created by the object.
Just my two cents. Best of luck on eventually finding a solution!
Fange_Strellow 5 points 5y ago
This sounds like a you problem. Do a little research and critical thinking on your own, we aren’t here to do your homework for you.
pants_party 2 points 5y ago
No need to be rude. This person is asking for information, instead of assuming they understand our plight. Also, asking a forum like this sub IS part of doing their research. I’d encourage you to take a small moment to help educate the sighted community when possible, especially when they reach out.
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