A Personal Computer-based Approach for 3D Printing Accessible to Blind People

Tactile materials play a major role in making information available to blind people and support their understanding for spatial matters. Due to the complex manual manufacturing process there is still a lack of suitable models for the visually impaired. Millions of 3D models are currently available on the internet and can be searched by dedicated retrieval sites. Most of them can be printed by 3D printers; however, this often isn't a trivial task even for sighted users. Blind peoples' self-dependence could be drastically increased if they were able to autonomously print 3D models at home. This paper analyses the individual tasks to actually print 3D models and adapts them to steps accessible for blind people. We introduce a workflow for the combined use of 3D printing software and consumer hardware. We verified our approach by a formal user study with visually impaired people which showed its feasibility.