Dotsplus is a combination of 8-dot braille plus raised representations of some print symbols. Braille cells are used for the usual characters, numbers, and punctuation, but raised images are used for fraction bars and integral signs and other symbols. The print symbols used are normally enlarged by a factor of 2.5-3 and then printed out as raised images so that they are the same height as the braille dots. This makes possible the use of a wider range of symbols than allowed by the 256 possible 8-dot braille cells but more importantly the use of raised images enhances the ability to lay out the page similar to print pages. For example a fraction can be represented in Dotsplus as two braille characters, one above the other, with a raised fraction bar between them. Since none of the World Wide Web clients are yet able to display raised images, an example of Dotsplus can be obtained with the help of the U.S. Postal Service by writing to gardner@zircon.physics.orst.edu. For the sighted, a bitmap image showing an example of Dotsplus is displayed below, bitmap image of Dotsplus along with an image of the regular print version of the same equation bitmap image of Dotsplus . A few papers have been published about Dotsplus and they are also available here.
* Dotsplus-Better than Braille?