title: Crosswatch: a Camera Phone System for Orienting Visually Impaired Pedestrians at Traffic Intersections.
abstract: Urban intersections are the most dangerous parts of a blind or visually impaired person's travel. To address this problem, this paper describes the novel "Crosswatch" system, which uses computer vision to provide information about the location and orientation of crosswalks to a blind or visually impaired pedestrian holding a camera cell phone. A prototype of the system runs on an off-the-shelf Nokia camera phone in real time, which automatically takes a few images per second, uses the cell phone's built-in computer to analyze each image in a fraction of a second and sounds an audio tone when it detects a crosswalk. Tests with blind subjects demonstrate the feasibility of the system and its ability to provide useful crosswalk alignment information under real-world conditions.
authors.affiliation: The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore St., San Francisco CA 94115, USA.
authors.forename: Volodymyr
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ivanchenko
authors.affiliation: The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore St., San Francisco CA 94115, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Coughlan
authors.affiliation: The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore St., San Francisco CA 94115, USA.
authors.forename: Huiying
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shen