A visio-haptic wearable system for assisting individuals who are blind

Abstract

Computer vision algorithms for visio-haptic information analysis, i.e., the conversion of visual data into haptic (tangible) features, can be utilized in wearable assistive devices for individuals who are blind. Touch is an important modality for individuals who are blind, but it is limited to the extent of one's reach. By estimating how an object feels from its visual image, we are able to overcome this limitation. This paper proposes a wearable assistive device to estimate haptic features from visual data to enable users to feel objects from a distance.