I want everyone to know that I used my opticon in the 80s to read all of my
math textbooks. I majored in math with my optic on. I could feel how the
equations were laid out in the book just like a sighted person sees them. I
traced graphs in learned what the graphs of many functions look like in
calculus. Because I felt what people see, I tutor math two-sided students
and I can show them what graphs look like because I felt them with my optic
on. I also read mail, screeds, and even handwriting with the optic on. When
I lived in the dorm in the 80s, people were really excited when I would
just whip out my opticon, and start reading their textbook right there on
the desk. No putting it on a scanner or anything like that. my dream is to
see a much better optic on with the technology we have now, for a much
cheaper price. We have the technology, we just need somebody to start
making at, and I would love it to be open source as well. Yes, totally
open-sourced just like in BDA. Take care guys, bless us all and keep safe.
David Moore
On Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 5:59 AM Mallard <mallard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...And all the people said: AMEN!
Amen to this message!
Plus: Open Hardwaer and Open Softeare, please! No moe patents, which is
what eventually killed the Optacon.
Ciao,
Ollie, Androidian forever and ever
On 26/03/2020 02:44, dan.tevelde@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I think you might be overcomplicating things. Any new optacon wouldprobably have to have zoom features just like the ones you find on phones
and are used in computer magnification software. NO doubt the best
platform for a new optacon would be Android mobile. A mobile device is
very portable and easy to update. Android is the most open software
platform for development. App updates don't need to be approved by
Google. The only certification would be the initial certification of the
optacon as a trusted device to Google.
It's also the type of device most people are familiar with.
Having the optacon be a mobile device would offer the most flexibility.
On Behalf Of David
Dan
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:03 PMelectronic feature of the next generation Optacon?
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carolyn <4carolyna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Hi, Optaconers
Eh, do we see one of the few cases, where we could wish for an
interpretation to the human brain. And yet, what if you got a new Optacon.
We have been talking of the benefit of the Optacon leaving all the
you sit down and do your reading, and come across a part of the text in
thick print. You now press a button on the Optacon, and a tiny piece of
software kicks in. It does no interpretation, no reshaping, no nothing.
What it is all about, is that it will scan the picture of the character,
and rip off all the thickness. What is left for you to feel, is a true copy
of the character, but with thinner lines.
to each others are active; Cut off one of the needles in such cases.
The basics of the technology could be described as follows.
Scan the image;
Look for continuous lines in the image, where three or more needles next
you press the button once again, the software will go one step further,
Your shape-lines of the character, now will be one needle thinner. If
taking the shape-lines down to one needle - the thinnest and most crisp you
could get.
would be a chance to thicken some text. That could specially be, when a
Of course, there are the moments, when you find yourself wishing there
font type has very thin lines in the top and bottom of the characters.
In such cases, there could be a second button, leaving you the chance toactivate extra needles on the thinner parts of the image.
assistance in "seeing" the shape more clearly, leaving you the better
What do you think. This would be no interpretation, but more a bit of
chance to perform the recognition of the characters. Promise you, when
dealing with things like electronic diagrams, I've been wishing for some
kind of ways to make the lines thicker, just as frequently as I wish there
would be ways to make shapes thinner.
how about when you read text that vary between bold (emphasized) text, and
As a bit of a sidenote here, which goes along the same line of ideas,
plain characters. Or, where you would have a mix of fonts, some more
outstanding than others. Great if you are eager to know the outlook of the
page. And necessary whenever you are to deal with certain features of the
material you read, like recognizing and distinguish the very number, in a
mathematical formula. But it often leads to extensive thumbling with the
knobs of the Optacon, raising and lowering the intensity and thickness of
the displayed image. What if the next Gen Optacon had a feature, that could
be turned on, which would attempt to give some mild equalization through
out the text. It would attempt to reduce the boldness of the boldest print,
somehow making it close to the rest of the text. A trained user would still
feel a slight boldness to the print, but it would be no more than what
still would be readable, without any fur
th
er adjustment. Kind of auser wants to do a plain reading of text. You then can go for the raw
"This is my reading level"-setting.
This level of adjustment could be saved, and brought up, whenever the
reading, like we have to day, if you need all the whistles and bells of the
text layout. But in most daily activities, when you do not care much about
the layout, only want to get to the info, the levelled-reading could be
activated.
steps as possible in practical terms. Having only one or two steps of
And yes, of course any such settings should be divided into as small
adjusting, may prove unacceptable. Again, blowing the Optacon with 129
steps for adjusting, will likely be little practically beneficial, and
rather prove frustrating. Something between 8 and 12 steps, either
direction, might be useful. You then could go from minus 12, to plus 12
- 0 being the standard, or Raw mode. Raw mode, would be what we alreadyhave on our current Optacon models.
implement in the software - I would conclude. It is all about algorithms,
Technically, these features are possible, and not too difficult to
and is being done in photo handling in dedicated applications on your
computer and cellphone already. Without me having checked it up, I am ready
to think there might be some freeware algorithms available on the net
already, that could be used for such up and down scaling of the thickness
and boldness of scannings of the printed text.
chance of bi-derectional scaling of the image. You all are familiar with
Lastly, one more thing that I find myself often wishing for, is the
the slider on top of the camera, leaving you the chance of adjusting the
magnification of the character a bit. But it seem to only change the hight
of the character. I wish there would be ways, to adjust the magnification
either direction. Sometimes it would have been nice to widen the character
a bit, other times it is nice to lower the hight.
And there would even be times when you need do a bit of adjustment toboth the hight and width of the character, to have the best reading
experience. Specially this comes true, when you deal with symbols, icons
and things like diagrams of different sorts. If the slider had been
replaced with a four way button, like the arrow-button on some old-style
cellphones and remote controls, you could have stepped up and down in
either hight or width. Press Up-arrow to raise the hight, Down-arrow to
lower it. Press Right-arrow to increase the width, and left-Arrow to
decrease. Even some users might find that they would read better, if the
character could be centered more to the point on their finger, where they
hold the highest sensitivity.
we'll save them for later.
Don't know, what the rest of you think. Got a few more ideas here, but
the quotes) in the message subject.
On 3/25/2020 6:34 PM, Carolyn wrote:
> I agree about thick print, as opposed to thin and sharp
> print.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> harlynn@xxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:18 AM
> To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [optacon-l] Hi, Optaconers
>
> This is Bob from Brooklyn, NY. I have been using my optacon
> to go over
> mail: I read part with the optacon, and part with my Sara.
> I like how they work together. I find that my main problem
> is still that I often think I know the next word in a
> sentence, and then realize I guessed wrong, and have to go
> back and figure it out.
>
> Very thick print is challenging for me. But regular print,
> I can do pretty well.
>
> I hope all of you are safe, and perhaps using some down time
> to use your optacons!
>
> Kind regards,
> Bob
>
>
> to view the list archives, go to:
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