Title :
Learning electronics using image processing techniques for describing circuits to blind students
Author :
Zapirain, B. Garcia ; Zorrilla, A. Mendez ; Ruiz, I. ; Muro, A.
Author_Institution :
Deustotech-VIDA Group, Univ. of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain
Abstract :
Electronics in Engineering Degrees has pedagogical resources as documentation that are not accessible to blind or visually disabled students because they can just have a text to speech conversion of the paragraphs but not a circuits schematics to speech conversion. This work presents a open source algorithm integrated in a tool compatible with OppenOffice who applies digital image processing and computer vision techniques to any circuits schematics included in the document and provides an intelligent and automatic textual description of both the sequence of electronic components and the position in the general schematics in order to make it accessible to blind people. Lecturers and teachers will be able to create teaching materials with common applications such as Pspice or Oregano, and then they will convert the charts into accessible-content figures in a very easy way. The screen reader will let them navigate around the graph in order to access the information of a concrete element in it. Assessment has been done with real trials and a satisfaction survey.
Keywords :
computer aided instruction; computer vision; electronic engineering education; handicapped aids; public domain software; teaching; blind students; circuits schematics; computer vision; electronic components; image processing; learning electronics; open source algorithm; openoffice; speech conversion; teaching; Educational institutions; Europe; Image recognition; Text recognition; Wire; Accessibility; computer vision; education; image signal processing;
Conference_Titel :
Signal Processing and Information Technology (ISSPIT), 2010 IEEE International Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Luxor
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-9992-2
DOI :
10.1109/ISSPIT.2010.5711764