In this project, the utilization of virtualized reality environments to the guidance of blind or visually-impaired people will be explored. A virtualized reality environment will be constructed... Show moreIn this project, the utilization of virtualized reality environments to the guidance of blind or visually-impaired people will be explored. A virtualized reality environment will be constructed based on visual sensory information and described verbally to the user instead of presented to him graphically. One of two contexts will be selected: a static scenario in which the motorized sensors and the system are located in the environment; or a mobile scenario in which a wearable computing system is worn by the user. The technical side of the project requires students with programming skills capable and/or interested in: image analysis, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and hardware interface and design. The non-technical side of the project requires students capable and/or interested in: analyzing the guidance needs of blind and visually-impaired people, analyzing and experimenting with different verbal descriptions of visual scenes, assessing the level of detail with which the user is comfortable, and experimenting with and assessing the effectiveness of different descriptive schemes. In the long term, the insight and ideas developed in this project may lead to their further development, testing and implementation in practical applications for those who are blind and visually-impaired or more generally for people to communicate and collaborate with each other more effectively in a virtual fashion. Show less
