Norberto Salinas
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Voice: (913) 842 7014
FAX: (913) 864 5255
e-mail: NORBERTO@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU

INTRODUCTION

We recognize that most published information today is prepared on computers and that much of it is available in electronic form, either as CD ROM books or as on-line literature accessible through electronic networks. We anticipate that this trend will continue and that in the near future nearly everything will be available electronically.

One of the goals of the Science Access Project is to encourage use of electronic formats that make information fully accessible[2]. The display methods and computer programs that were demonstrated can all be produced from computer files written with reasonable care in LaTeX, but other structured electronic formats are possible in the future as well.

The presentation methods demonstrated at this meeting included Dotsplus, GS Braille, and the Audio-formatted speech output from T. V. Raman's ASTeR (Audio System for Technical Readings) program[3].

We demonstrated a UNIX braille-access program written by the Science Access Project as part of the UNIX SCREEN[4] utility. The next release of SCREEN will contain this program, which currently supports the TSI Navigator and Power Braille refreshable braille displays. SCREEN runs under most UNIX operating systems including the Linux operating system for the PC. With the new release, braille users will be able to access all UNIX applications that run under SCREEN. These include nearly all applications that can run in text mode.

We also demonstrated an alpha version of our new TRIANGLE! program. TRI ANGLE! is a fully tri-modal program for reading, writing, and manipulating mathematical/scientific information. It runs under the DOS operating system on a 386 or later PC.

DOTSPLUS

Dotsplus computer files are often quite straightforward to make from files intended for visual documents. If the computer file permits a global font change, one can simply substitute properly-sized Dotsplus fonts and print with little or no editing. We are presently making Dotsplus documents using one of the family of TeX languages, but we have made them with standard Windows word processors in the past.

The only practical method at present of making individual copies of Dots plus printouts is by using swell paper[7]. A new process recently invented by Dr. Ed Anczurowski of Tactile Vision, Inc.[8] shows great promise for production of larger quantities of Dotsplus documents as well as for making other high-resolution tactile materials.

GS BRAILLE

John Gardner and Norberto Salinas have developed the dual 6/8 dot GS code in the spirit of the ubc. The grade 2 (contracted) 6-dot GS6 code is similar to the ubc and, of course, to the present literary code. The uncontracted code is used for mathematics and has a number of differences from the ubc in order to make a dual code possible.

The 8-dot GS8 code is nothing more than a compact version of GS6. All symbols that are single cells in GS6 are the same in GS8, but a number of multiple-cell GS6 symbols may be represented in GS8 as single cells. Simple transformation rules define the GS8 symbol, so that anyone who knows GS6 also knows GS8. GS8 should be particularly convenient for use with on-line computer braille displays.

TRIANGLE!

Triangle is intended for use by print-impaired students and professionals in science, engineering, and math. Triangle includes:

* the Triangle Touch-and-Tell Program for audio/braille-assisted reading of tactile figures on an external digitizing pad.

The keyboard or any assistive device/software that emulates a keyboard may be used for input. Triangle output may be viewed:

* any or all of the above simultaneously.

The Triangle editor/reader programs primary purpose is to provide a work space for manipulating mathematics. The GS linear notation is used for scientific expressions. GS symbols that are not on the standard keyboard may be entered using a braille keyboard option or by using pull-down lists having hot-key options for advanced users.

A translator from a subset of LaTeX to GS is being developed by the Science Access Project. A structured editor successor to Triangle is presently in the planning stages. This version would permit translation from structured GS to LaTeX.

The Triangle editor has five different document windows that provide basic editing capabilities, including search and cut and paste operations. Th is program is constructed from standard Microsoft programming tools and should be intuitive for people familiar with editing functions in the MS DOS editor, MS Works, MS Word, etc.

The Triangle calculator permits evaluation of most standard math expressions. Results are returned to the scratch-pad buffer and may be cut and pasted to other documents. The calculator will also evaluate functions y versus x that can be viewed in an audio/braille viewer that provides a quick semi-quantitative overview of simple graphs.

The Triangle table reader program allows two options for reading tables. One option, useful for reading tables with large cells, allows tables to be read cell by cell. The second option formats tables to be read line by line. The latter option is useful for small tables being read in braille, but the first is usually preferable when speech synthesis is used or when tables are large.

The Triangle Touch-and-Tell program provides alternate-mode display for information presented visually in figures. The user selects an object or region on a figure that is mounted on a digitizing tablet. The touch-and-tell program then displays textual information about that object or region that can be read visually, audibly, or in braille. Triangle presently supports the Nomad tablet and the Edmark Touch Window.

Documents can be prepared for convenient reading by using the TRIANGLE! hyperlinking capacity. This is intended for figures, tables, footnotes, references, etc. that do not appear in the flow of the main document. These may be read or viewed in separate hyperlinked windows if and when the reader desires.

REFERENCES

Return to SEM Page

Home