About the Hear Image tool
The Hear Image tool is an attempt to understand an image through sound, and would translating an image into sound help a blind person to ‘see’ an image on the internet. The tool is pretty simple to use just click on the image and move the mouse (or do the same with multi-touch for tablets/smartphones) the sound that is produced depends on the image appearance where your are touching it with a mouse or your finger.
How we can hear an image?
Well, With difficulty, it could become a learned skill for blind people. Anyway, this tool represents a starting point and a proof of concept, lets see where it leads. The app creates the sound from the local colour in the vecinity of the mouse with the volume coming from the image intensity. The frequencies are mapped to the musical scale and played client side using the html5 webaudio oscillator functionality. It was pretty tricky getting the osciallotor object to ‘play ball’ with constantly changing input frequencies however it seems to work fine for a first attempt. The tool will be updated soon and hopefully the idea extended using other sensory modes also for blind people. If you are interested in what html5 webaudio can do then please also have a look at my RhythmSticks online drumkit application.
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