MEMORANDUM
To: Members And Friends
NFB R&D Committee
From: T. V. Cranmer, Chairman
Subject: Tactile Graphics Symposium
Date: March 18, 1994
I have just returned from the symposium of tactile graphics put
together by John Gardner, Bill Barry and funded in part by the
National Science Foundation. It was a good meeting. Some of the
papers will be available on the FTP site at Trace Research Center.
More details on this later.
Dr. Fricke gave a detailed report on his project to harness
electrorheological fluid to raise and lower pins on a graphic
display that can show braille characters with reasonable adherence
to standard spacing.
Dr. Leeb brought samples of the remarkable phase transition gels
that he will use to actuate tactile stimulators of some sort. As
of right now, it isn't clear just how he will package the gel and
couple it to the blind user. Leeb believes that the materials cost
for a display would be less than a thousand dollars. Retail cost
would obviously be more.
You will remember that both of these technologies were reviewed at
our January meeting at the National center for the blind. Both
papers will be included in the proceedings on the Trace FTP.
Robert Peiffer made a presentation by voice phone discussing
various polymers that may serve as solid ink in a printer to
produce raised graphics. He hinted at developments at DuPont that
were proprietary and that could not yet be discussed in an open
forum. You can bet we will be in touch with him about these new
developments.
Dr. Foulke gave an historic overview of the methods used for
producing raised-line drawings and other graphics.
It was my pleasure to chair one session of the symposium, which
afforded and opportunity to make preliminary remarks. Here is the
message I tried to give the group:
We are now utilizing only a small part of the potential bandwidth
of the tactile sense. With good training and greatly expanded
expectations, the sense of touch can provide a wealth of
information that we are now missing. As one example, blind people
are often taught to examine braille with only one finger tip. By
keeping two, three or four fingers in contact with a line of
braille, the field of perceptions will be enlarged proportionately.
By bringing the other hand into play, further enhancement of
perception will occur.
To demonstrate this, consider asking a person under light shades to
identify an apple by touching it with one finger while the apple is
rotated to bring all of its surface in contact with the finger pad.
Next, place the apple in the open hands of a second subject and
note how much more quickly he will recognize it. The difference
will obviously be great. It is brought about by increasing the
parallel tactile inputs to the brain where they are intuitively
integrated into a single tactile image of the apple.
All of this points up the challenge to the scientists and engineers
of our time: To find or design the materials that will make it
possible to produce the tactile transducers that are capable of
coupling tactile stimulation to our massively parallel organs of
touch.
I ran out of time at about this point, so I didn't attempt to
describe the transducers. Maybe next time.
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