지식정보 소외계층을 위한 북 스캔 플레이어 개발

In this paper, we propose an image-to-audio conversion system which enables the people who are isolated from knowledge information (such as those disabled, old, or infirm) to easily access the information. The proposed system consists of a hand scanner for acquiring documental information, a smart phone for data transmission, TTS(Text to Speech), and interfacing, and a server for OCR(Optical Character Recognition). Our system can be built with a relatively low cost because it employs a smart phone and a server rather than building a stand-alone system which has its own processing unit. In addition, the system is easy to carry as it uses a hand scanner. We considered the physical limitations of the infirm when designing the system interface. The system was tested with specially made booklet where various colors and fonts were printed. Experimental results indicate that black and red characters show less recognition error in different printing resolutions and scanning methods(color or mono). The use of a hand scanner however brought inconsistent performance depending on scanning angle and hand shaking. We discuss further development and improvement issues in the conclusion part of this paper.