Kaj Toet's BlindVisor.com Turns Webcams Into a Wearable 3D-Audio Accessibility Aid for the Blind
JavaScript system runs in-browser on modest hardware, turning two 2D webcam views into a 3D audio representation of the user's surroundings.
Developer Kaj Toet is working to turn compact USB-connected cameras into a wearable accessibility tool for the blind — creating on-the-fly depth maps and turning them into positional 3D audio for live feedback on the user's surroundings.
"BlindVisor.com is a project where I use two USB webcams and JavaScript in the browser to produce feedback for the blind," Toet explains. "I made this for use with a [Google] Chromebook, which is cheap and energy efficient."
Currently being prototyped using a pair of USB webcams, with a plan to switch to smaller endoscope-style cameras fitted to glasses to make the system wearable, BlindVisor.com works by using video feeds from the two cameras positioned horizontally distant to create a depth map — turning the two two-dimensional videos into a single three-dimensional representation of the user's surroundings.
Neither two- nor three-dimensional representations on a screen are of much use to a blind user, though, which is where the system gets clever: the depth map is then rendered as 3D positional sound, feeding information on obstacles back to the wearer via speaker or headphones. Because everything runs in the browser, the system is theoretically platform-agnostic — and compatible with Android smartphones, to boost portability.
More information is available on Toet's Hackaday.io page, along with a source code download under unspecified licensed terms; a live demo, requiring two USB cameras, is available on BlindVisor.com.