Synchronization and Sharing Information of Tactile Map with Online Map: An Online Navigation Tool for the Visually Impaired

We describe a method of sharing information between a tactile map on a paper and an online map on the information terminals (e.g., Tablet computers such as iPad). We use "digital pen" technology which is used as an input method of hand-written characters (e.g., Pegasus technologies such as Note Taker). Our method is based on synchronizing the location of contact point on the tactile-map with the corresponding point on the original online map achieved through the following two steps: 1) Create a road-only tactile map: Extract road pictures from the target online map and create a simple road-only map in SVG (scalable vector graphics), then copy it onto a tactile paper. 2) Point on the tactile map by digital pen. Then, the location (coordinates) of the contact point is synchronized by the digital pen synchronization mechanism and mapped onto the corresponding location in the online map (a calibration is done beforehand between the maps using SVG facility). Thus, various information of the online-map can be provided to the visually impaired user in the text form from the online-map database. Specific information pertaining to the visually impairness such as entrance of the buildings could be also supplied from the self-maintained database.