Author: SAS (i): Contact: www.sas.com
Published: 08/24/2020
Table of contents and important points:
SAS provides free resources on creating and sharing non-visual digital maps to enhance the higher education experience.
Students with visual impairments or blindness explore the cards with a “virtual stick” supported by headphones or earphones and controlled with a keyboard, joystick, or standard gamepad controller.
Nearby objects are displayed at a high pitch, while distant objects are displayed at a low pitch. The user can zoom in and out by changing the length of their virtual stick.
Main digestion
Many new college students struggle to find classrooms, dormitories, cafeterias, and other campus landmarks. It is even more difficult for students with blindness. This could change thanks to a new resource from analytics company SAS. With SAS®Graphics Accelerator, students with visual impairments or blindness can explore a growing map library that already spans 35 university campuses across the United States.
Maps present the real world in small, easily digestible pieces so that users can travel from home, explore an area, and learn about them. Maps are also used to create concepts such as mental maps, spatial relationships, and other skills related to critical orientation.
SAS works with the Perkins School for the Blind to offer people with visual impairments these opportunities. With SAS Graphics Accelerator, a free browser extension that converts graphics and charts to sound, users create non-visual digital maps that include POIs such as intersections, bus stops, buildings, and other landmarks.
Diane Brauner, Perkins’ Paths to Technology website manager and an orientation and mobility specialist, uses the maps to prepare students for life on campus.
“I was able to use digital cards like these to get incoming college students used to their campus in advance,” Brauner said. “The cards increase the mobility, confidence and safety of visually impaired students as they navigate their new surroundings.”
Using a map from Elon University created with the SAS Graphics Accelerator, Brauner held a distance orientation and mobility lesson with Victor, a freshman, to brief him about the North Carolina campus prior to his arrival.
“It gave me a better mental map,” said Victor. “For example, I didn’t understand how some streets are connected. Now I understand how the campus is laid out, what I have to find and where I am going.”
Help from the crowd
The map repository currently contains maps from schools such as Brown University, Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, Duke, the state of Florida, Johns Hopkins, the state of North Carolina, Texas Tech, UCLA, the University of North Carolina, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.
SAS plans to collect cards for hundreds of other colleges and universities around the world, which will be housed on the Perkins’ Paths to Technology website and also posted on a school website or shared with students via email. Campus accessibility staff, certified orientation and mobility specialists, and others familiar with the needs of people with visual impairments are encouraged to create maps and send them to the repository – but anyone can contribute.
Activate insight without sight
The scale of the maps can range from a city block to a campus to an entire metropolitan area.
Users can pan, zoom in, or out of the map, understand the name of nearby points, and the bearing and distance of each point from the current virtual location.
Students with visual impairments or blindness explore the cards with a “virtual stick” supported by headphones or earphones and controlled with a keyboard, joystick, or standard gamepad controller.
The campus cards help pupils, students and campus visitors with visual impairments or blindness with:
- Navigate efficiently and effectively on a campus.
- Take a virtual tour of campus as you navigate through the college selection process.
- Orientate yourself on campus before you arrive in the first semester.
- Plan new travel routes at the beginning of each semester.
Communicate distance and place through sound
SAS Graphics Accelerator, a tool that makes data visualizations accessible to people with visual impairments, uses ultrasound to convey distance, direction, and alignment. For example, the relative distance of an object from the user’s virtual location to the end of their virtual stick is indicated using pitch. Nearby objects are displayed at a high pitch, while distant objects are displayed at a low pitch. The user can zoom in and out by changing the length of their virtual stick.
The sound for each object is shifted between the left and right speakers based on the object’s north orientation. Objects facing north and south from the user’s virtual location are perfectly balanced between the left and right speakers or earbuds and distinguished with the help of synthesized sound. Objects in the north are not synthesized, while objects in the south have a slightly metallic sound. The sound coming from the right and left speakers indicates objects facing due east and west, respectively.
In addition to the sound reinforcement described above, the user can hear a verbal description of each object. The verbal description can include the label of the object, the distance to the object and the bearing of the object. For example, the user might hear “Bus stop, 100 Campus Rd, 183 meters north” to indicate the location of a bus stop and its side of the street.
The user can quickly move around the map by panning due north, south, east, or west. You can also jump to any object you encounter with your virtual stick, or search the entire map for an object and then jump to that object.
Ed Summers, Director of Accessibility at SAS, led the development of the SAS Graphics Accelerator. “This product was built by the blind for the blind,” said Summers, who is visually impaired. “With the ability to make charts and graphs consumable for people with blindness, geospatial data is a natural application for SAS Graphics Accelerator.”
Applications go well beyond college campuses
Mapping possibilities exist far beyond higher education. In fact, the repository already contains a map of San Francisco’s tourist attractions, famous lighthouses, and civil war battlefields.
“We started with college campuses to meet a common need among young students with blindness,” said Summers. “It’s exciting to think about what the crowd is coming up with, whether it’s theme parks, city attractions, or walking tours. We’re just getting started.”
(i) Source / Reference: SAS. Disabled World makes no guarantees or warranties in connection therewith. Content may have been edited for style, clarity, or length.
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Journal: Disabled World. Language: English. Author: SAS. Electronic publication date: 2020-08-24. Last revised date: 2020-08-24. Reference title: “Campus Maps for students with visual impairments”, source: Campus Maps for students with visual impairments. Summary: SAS offers free resources on creating and sharing non-visual digital maps to enhance the college experience. Retrieved on December 18, 2018 from https://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/visual/campus-maps.php – reference category number: DW # 158-13866.
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