Intelligent computational techniques and virtual environment for understanding cerebral visual impairment patients

Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) is a medical area that concerns the study of the effect of brain damages on the visual field (VF). People with CVI are not able to construct a perfect 3-Dimensional view of what they see through their eyes in their brain. Therefore, they have difficulties in their mobility and behaviours that others find hard to understand due to their visual impairment. A branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of behaviour by building computational models that help to explain how people solve problems or why they behave in a certain way. This project describes a novel intelligent system that simulates the navigation problems faced by people with CVI. This will help relatives, friends, and ophthalmologists of CVI patients understand more about their difficulties in navigating their everyday environment. The navigation simulation system is implemented using the Unity3D game engine. Virtual scenes of different living environments are also created using the Unity modelling software. The vision of the avatar in the virtual environment is implemented using a camera provided by the 3D game engine. Given a visual field chart of a CVI patient with visual impairment, the system automatically creates a filter (mask) that mimics a visual defect and places it in front of the visual field of the avatar. The filters are created by extracting, classifying and converting the symbols of the defected areas in the visual field chart to numerical values and then converted to textures to mask the vision. Each numeric value represents a level of transparency and opacity according to the severity of the visual defect in that region. The filters represent the vision masks. Unity3D supports physical properties to facilitate the representation of the VF defects into a form of structures of rays. The length of each ray depends on the VF defect s numeric value. Such that, the greater values (means a greater percentage of opacity) represented by short rays in length. While the smaller values (means a greater percentage of transparency) represented by longer rays. The lengths of all rays are representing the vision map (how far the patient can see). Algorithms for navigation based on the generated rays have been developed to enable the avatar to move around in given virtual environments. The avatar depends on the generated vision map and will exhibit different behaviours to simulate the navigation problem of real patients. The avatar s behaviour of navigation differs from patient to another according to their different defects. An experiment of navigating virtual environments (scenes) using the HTC Oculus Vive Headset was conducted using different scenarios. The scenarios are designed to use different VF defects within different scenes. The experiment simulates the patient s navigation in virtual environments with static objects (rooms) and in virtual environments with moving objects. The behaviours of the experiment participants actions (avoid/bump) match the avatar s using the same scenario. This project has created a system that enables the CVI patient s parents and relatives to aid the understanding what the CVI patient encounter. Besides, it aids the specialists and educators to take into account all the difficulties that the patients experience. Then, is to design and develop appropriate educational programs that can help each individual patient

Proposal of a tangible user interface to increase accessibility in geological exhibitions and the experience of museums

Currently, the museums use different interactive technologies to communicate their exhibitions; however, it turns out that in most cases, information is not accessible to all members of the public. In this paper, we present the design of a tangible user interface to enhance accessibility in geological exhibitions, specifically for the case of visitors with visual impairments, and we also present the study’s results about how to improve the experience of those who visit museums, using this tangible media technology as an exhibitor for samples. The results showed that the interaction with the interface pleased the visitors and that it has application space ithin geological exhibitions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Research Laboratory of Electronics Quarterly progress report, period ending 31 Aug. 1966

Research reports in theoretical physics, plasma dynamics, spectroscopy, radio astronomy, and communication sciences and engineerin

Smartdevices development for visual impairment and colour vision deficiency

The research concerns with the development of an app-based system to assist those with vision impairment to better interact with mobile phones and computers achieving maximum advantages. In particular, the system helps to detect colour deficiency and can automatically adjust view screens to increase contrast and arrive at optimal view result. Preliminary results when asking observers to evaluate the system demonstrate the advantages of the developed software system

Development of a design evaluation tool for primary school projects

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, Architecture, İzmir, 2003Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 113-115)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxi, 116 leavesEducation should play an important role in transforming children into productive adults and members of society. School should be the environment of these transformations as an educational milieu in which children collect data through perception. School should also offer a motivating environment while concepts of three-dimensionality, size, proportion and symbolization develop in the child.s mind. Therefore, the spaces in which children are educated have very special importance in their lives.Contemporary schools should have environmental adaptation, be functionally sufficient, aesthetically attractive and structurally appropriate.Since August 18'th 1997, new educational measures have been taking such as renovation of Turkish National Education Program and primary school education which have been extended from five years to eight years. This required capacity increase, restoration of existing school buildings and design of new projects.Development of an evaluation tool for primary school projects has the aim of creating a basis for future primary school projects for both private and national ones

Abstracts from CIP 2007: Segundo Congreso Ibérico de Percepción

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Indoor navigation for the visually impaired : enhancements through utilisation of the Internet of Things and deep learning

Wayfinding and navigation are essential aspects of independent living that heavily rely on the sense of vision. Walking in a complex building requires knowing exact location to find a suitable path to the desired destination, avoiding obstacles and monitoring orientation and movement along the route. People who do not have access to sight-dependent information, such as that provided by signage, maps and environmental cues, can encounter challenges in achieving these tasks independently. They can rely on assistance from others or maintain their independence by using assistive technologies and the resources provided by smart environments. Several solutions have adapted technological innovations to combat navigation in an indoor environment over the last few years. However, there remains a significant lack of a complete solution to aid the navigation requirements of visually impaired (VI) people. The use of a single technology cannot provide a solution to fulfil all the navigation difficulties faced. A hybrid solution using Internet of Things (IoT) devices and deep learning techniques to discern the patterns of an indoor environment may help VI people gain confidence to travel independently. This thesis aims to improve the independence and enhance the journey of VI people in an indoor setting with the proposed framework, using a smartphone. The thesis proposes a novel framework, Indoor-Nav, to provide a VI-friendly path to avoid obstacles and predict the user s position. The components include Ortho-PATH, Blue Dot for VI People (BVIP), and a deep learning-based indoor positioning model. The work establishes a novel collision-free pathfinding algorithm, Orth-PATH, to generate a VI-friendly path via sensing a grid-based indoor space. Further, to ensure correct movement, with the use of beacons and a smartphone, BVIP monitors the movements and relative position of the moving user. In dark areas without external devices, the research tests the feasibility of using sensory information from a smartphone with a pre-trained regression-based deep learning model to predict the user s absolute position. The work accomplishes a diverse range of simulations and experiments to confirm the performance and effectiveness of the proposed framework and its components. The results show that Indoor-Nav is the first type of pathfinding algorithm to provide a novel path to reflect the needs of VI people. The approach designs a path alongside walls, avoiding obstacles, and this research benchmarks the approach with other popular pathfinding algorithms. Further, this research develops a smartphone-based application to test the trajectories of a moving user in an indoor environment

Index to 1985 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 10, numbers 1-4

Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1985 Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences