A Spot Reminder System for the Visually Impaired Based on a Smartphone Camera.
The present paper proposes a smartphone-camera-based system to assist visually impaired users in recalling their memories related to important locations, called spots, that they visited. The memories are recorded as voice memos, which can be played back when the users return to the spots. Spot-to-spot correspondence is determined by image matching based on the scale invariant feature transform. The main contribution of the proposed system is to allow visually impaired users to associate arbitrary voice memos with arbitrary spots. The users do not need any special devices or systems except smartphones and do not need to remember the spots where the voice memos were recorded. In addition, the proposed system can identify spots in environments that are inaccessible to the global positioning system. The proposed system has been evaluated by two experiments: image matching tests and a user study. The experimental results suggested the effectiveness of the system to help visually impaired individuals, including blind individuals, recall information about regularly-visited spots.
University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, Ibaraki, Japan. takizawa@cs.tsukuba.ac.jp.
Hotaka
H
Takizawa
University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, Ibaraki, Japan. kc_orita@pr.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp.
Kazunori
K
Orita
Aichi University of Education, 1 Hirosawa, Igaya, Kariya 448-8542, Aichi, Japan. maoyagi@auecc.aichi-edu.ac.jp.
Mayumi
M
Aoyagi
National Institute of Technology, Toba College, 1-1 Ikegami, Toba 517-8501, Mie, Japan. ezaki@toba-cmt.ac.jp.
Nobuo
N
Ezaki
Aichi Institute of Technology, 1247 Yachigusa, Yakusa, Toyota 470-0392, Aichi, Japan. s_mizuno@aitech.ac.jp.
Shinji
S
Mizuno
D017010:Reminder Systems; D000068997:Smartphone; D019987:Persons with Visual Disabilities
image matching; scale invariant feature transform; smartphone cameras; spot reminder; user study; visually impaired individuals