The Sound of Vision YouTube channel is now online! It is our latest tool for making the project, and the opportunities it presents to blind and low vision people known to the world. Our channel currently includes a number of videos that illustrate the current capabilities of the Sound of Vision system, and show users wearing it both indoors as well as outdoors. The videos present the main steps required for becoming proficient with, and using the device to its fullest. These include:
- First contact will usually take place through the system’s virtual training environment, as shown here. It allows creating both indoor and outdoor environments that can be configured from simple to complex. Users ca thus get a feel for the audio and haptic feedback of the device and begin the road to mastering it.
- Once comfortable with device feedback, users can undertake quests within virtual worlds simulated within the training environment. Real-life buildings such as a shopping mall and university can be simulated, together with complex fantasy environments, which bring serious gaming elements.
- Once users are comfortable navigating complex virtual environments, they move on to the real-world, under careful instructor supervision. This video illustrates how the system is used for navigating indoor, while here we see a more complex scenario, both filmed on location at the University Politehnica in Bucharest.
- The system can be used just as well outdoors. In this video, the user navigates outdoors by following a building wall that they do not touch.
- The most complex scenarios are usually those outdoors, on busy city streets. This video illustrates such an orientation and mobility scenario that was filmed under supervision, but otherwise without any scripting, on a busy street. The system can be also configured to read detected signs to the user, as shown in our last video.
