Automated Book Reader Design for Persons with Blindness

This research introduces a novel automated book reader as an assistive technology tool for persons with blindness in the reading of books and other bound volumes. This design responds to the main concerns of (a) providing a method of image acquisition that maintains the integrity of the source, (b) overcoming optical character recognition errors created by inherent imaging issues such as curvature effects and lens distortion, and (c) determining a suitable method for accurate recognition of characters that yields an interface with the ability to read from any open book with a high reading accuracy nearing 98%. The theoretical perspective of this research relates to the mathematical developments to resolve both the inherent distortions due to the properties of the camera lens and the anticipated distortions of the changing page curvature as one leafs through the book.

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