Gary Wunder writes:
>
> I understand our emphasis is technology and that in order to appreciate
> pictures and graphs, we must first have a way to produce them. My
> question is how much detail blind folks can appreciate. My experience is
> that often raised line drawings mean very little to me. Show me a horse
> and tell me it is a cow and I'll believe you. Is this learned or are we
> trying to do something tactily which really only works effectively using
> vision. Is the skill of seeing lines and interpreting them as beautiful
> art learned or native for those who see?
>
I believe Gary has a point here. I, too, have had a fair amount
of difficulty comprehending (muss less appreciaiting) most raised
drawiings with the exception of simplified graphs, some raised
maps and block diagrams. (There are exceptions, though: I
*have* been able to read with an Optacon block diagrams of electronic
gear and I once successfully read/enjoyed with an Optacon a map
charting the progress of the great Chicago fire of 1871.)
I think part of the problem lies in the fact that three-dimensional
and perspective drawing (which is used drawing machine diagrams)
relies upon an illusion -- that parallel lines converge into
the distance. While a blind person can understand this in the
abstract (a little playing with trigonometry is a good convincer),
I assert that this illusion of convergence does not translate
well into the tactile realm. To me, at least, parallel lines are
parallel lines whether at the bottom or top of a page and
convergent lines are convergent lines and never the twain shall
meet.
In addition, there is the whole matter of light and shadow
as used by artists in paintings to give an illusion of reality.
IMHO this has no analog in the tactile realm. IMHO all efforts
to produce translations of visual arts directly appreciable by
the blind are doomed to abysmal failure and such efforts have been
done amount to little more than linking textures with art
attributes -- good for an Art History exam but little else.
As an asside, the only explanation of drawing with light and shadow
that I ever understood was in a manual written by Leonardo da Vinci.
His exposition was clearer than anything I've seen since.
Ultimately, this points up to me the usefulness of an intelligent
diagram interpreter -- in other words, a sighted reader!
Graphs et al work fine for 2-dimensional pictures but bomb
miserably when trying to convey 3-D concepts.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider the problem(s) nor
should we abandon efforts to design a decent plotter. Like
every other technical innovation concering blindness, all this is
to point up just that such instruments have their limitations.
Just one person's opinion.
-- Mike Freeman | Internet: mikef@pacifier.com GEnie: M.FREEMAN11 | Amateur Radio Callsign: K7UIJ ... "Innovation is hard to schedule." -- Dan Fylstra
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:03 PST