THE HEIDELBERG TACTILE VISION SUBSTITUTION SYSTEM by Thorsten Maucher, Johannes Schemmel and Karlheinz Meier is an augmented artificial vision system created to provide blind individuals with a way of “seeing”.
The paper outlines the four kinds of tactile vision substitution systems that have been researched – mechanotactile,electrotactile and thermotactile. One problem is stated to often be the design of a device that is both portable and large enough to give a significant indication of visual information through tactile feedback.
Maucher et al. have designed a “virtual tactile displays that presents 48 “tactile pixel elements” which correspond with visual information. Positions from the camera data are sent to each of the 48 “tactile pixel elements” that correspond in location. The programatic element of the project is not explained in depth, but based on some of the camera vision work we’ve done in class, I can imagine how to implement something like this. I’ve been thinking a lot about synthetic sensory systems and have started working on concepts for a project.