''Reading eyes'' device to make reading easy for blind

Chandigarh, Aug 6: A hand-held reading device that works like ''reading eyes'' promises to open the floodgates of knowledge for the visually impaired to keep pace with information explosion.

The hand-held step-scanning (HHSS) developed for the first time in the world by scientists of Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) will vastly expand the scope for visually challenged persons to read as it eliminates the need to convert the text into braille.

CSIO director Dr Pawan Kapur told UNI the portible scanner, with no moving parts, provides convenience and control in the hand of a visually-impaired person. The device can be attached to a desktop computer and can be used as a portable text reader if connected with a laptop computer.

Dr Kapur said the easy-to-operate device has a single button control embossed prominently along with eight other buttons to adjust the functions like volume, speed, rewind and pause as per the requirements of the user.

The director said traditionally, visually impaired and blind rely only on Braille for learning and education. Braille, comprising of a rectangular six-dot cell, is embossed onto thick paper and read with the fingers. As separate Braille codes are needed for advanced courses of mathematics, science and computers, the books not only become bulky but also confusing for the reader.

Moreover, teachers and books of braille are in short supply.

With this device, a large number of visually impaired people would get equal opportunities to read any printed material by converting the text into speech, he said.

HHSS project leader Dr H K Sardana said the device, which took over two years to develop, had been patented in India and application for the same has been filed in the US, the UK, China and some other countries.

Dr Sardana informed that step-scanning technique permits continuity by automatic removal of overlap to provide seamless output and all the errors due to hand movements are handled automatically.

Dr Sardana informed the device which can read only English text at present, can be further updated to suit any language in the world written horizontally. At present, Centre for Design for Advance Commputing CDAC, Noida is working on Hindi version and West Bengal government's Industrial Corporation is working on developing Optical Character Reading (OCR) in Bangla, he said.

He explained the device consists of a pair of imaging modules for acquiring a panoramic image of the book or document over which it is placed and the stereo vision camera generates data in an audible manner to help the visually impaired persons.

While a page may be covered in only two or three steps from top to bottom and new-page detection is automatically handled when the search fails in the current scan, he added.

''It only takes a few minutes of operational training to use the device,'' he said. He explained the device could be used for various types of reading needs, like addresses, reading on an envelope or visiting cards and bar code reading.

Dr Sardana said the team is working to install a biscuit-shaped computer on the device to make it pocket-friendly or mobile shaped.

About the future modifications, Dr Sardana said, the device with this technique could further be used to convert text to soft braille for tactile reading of the document.

So far, the other devices available in the market work on a sweeping action over the area of interest and there is no apparatus designed for reading by people without sight at their own pace and control. Also their sizes are either too big or too small for the visually impaired persons to handle.

Some hand-held, mouse-like devices scan a small intended area by sweeping motion. All these devices have moving parts and can only be used by sighted people for scanning accurately over the text to be read.

UNI