Newsletter
Issue VI.
DIGIGLASSES
Development of 3D digital glasses for enhancing mobility of
visually impaired people to open strategic product lines for
participant SMEs
The
DIGIGLASSES
project aims to help this group of visually impaired people by providing
them with a glasses-like digital tool to convert the real view of the environment to a
sharp-er, more focused picture by increasing contrast and using edge detection.
The plan is to develop a pair of digital “glasses” working with a camera chip, a signal
cessing unit and a small LCD or LED screen. The captured picture will be analyzed and
pro-cessed based on the necessary corrections. One of the planned corrections is contrast
in-creasing and edge detection which will help the visually impaired recognize the different
objects in their surroundings. The signal processing can be completed with motion
detec-tion as well for them to recognize moving objects like cars or bicycles; and colour
recogni-tion to emphasize red and green colours.
Original view of a healthy person Original view of a visually impaired person with serious contrast problems
Corrected view (by only increasing the contrast) of a healthy person
Corrected view (by only increasing the contrast) for a visually impaired person
with serious contrast problems
Newsletter
Issue VI.
Introduction
In this issue:
Introduction ...1
Consortium………2
Project progress...3
News ...4
Events...6
Contact ...7
Newsletter
Issue VI.
Consortium
Members of the consortium:
Partici-pant
No./Type
of
partici-pant
Participant organisation
name
Participant
short name
Coun-try
Core competence
1 (RTD) ATEKNEA Solutions Hungary Kft. ATEKNEA HU Software development; Image pro-cessing; Project coordination 2 (SME) DIAPLOUS Electronics Ltd. DIAPLOUS GR Manufacturing and system integration
of microelectronic systems 3 (SME) Flexible Optical BV OKOTECH NE Development of optical software and
optical systems
4 (SME) Adaptor AS ADAPTOR NO Distribution of visual aid devices 5 (SME) Informatika a Látássérültekért
Alapítvány
-IT Foundation for the Visually Impaired
INFOALAP HU Distribution of visual aid devices
6 (RTD) Optimal Optik Kft. Optimal Optik Kft.
HU Research and development of optical lens systems
7 (RTD) Brunel University UBRUN UK Research and development of microe-lectronic systems and structures
Issue I.
Newsletter
Issue VI.
Project progress
Currently the Consortium is finalizing the electrical and mechanical design of the system,
and focusing on the integration. The fine tuning of the software platform is also in focus.
The first tests are planned to be in Budapest and will start in May and will last for 2
months. The aim of these tests is to try the DIGIGLASSES prototype on visually impaired
people in order to see the possible problems. The researchers would like to know how
helpful and useful DIGIGLASSES is in the daily routine of the target customers and what the
possible and necessary steps in further research activity.
During the upcoming General Meeting (19 March 2014) the system will be demonstrated
with a mock-up prototype. Based on the experiences and comments the test prototype
will be finalised until the end of April.
We have submitted the ethical clearance petition to the relevant authority to get an
ap-proval for the testing starting in May
Our partner ADAPTOR will participate on the VISION2014 conference in Australia and
rep-resent the project there. They will have a poster section and also an oral prep-resentation
about DIGIGLASSES system.
Issue I
Issue I.
Newsletter
Issue VI.
News
Under the coordination of ATEKNEA Solutions Hungary Kft. a new project has been
launched at 1st of January 2014. It is called BLINDTRACK and aims to develop a running
facility embedded to a 400 m athletic track for visually impaired people to run without
another person’s assistance.
Equal access to services and public places is now required
by law in many countries. Jogging, running is certified to have positive effects on
men-tal and physical health conditions of people so thus visually impaired sportsmen. With
BLINDTRACK system the Consortium aims to raise the level of accessibility of visually
impaired to sport to reflect the need for an effective assistive technology. This would
facilitate the well-being while decreasing their exclusion from sport and leisure
activi-ties. It also facilitates industry to be able to better meet anti-discrimination legislation.
The proposed system helps visually impaired people integrate to the community with
increasing confidence, better health condition and higher tolerance level of sighted
people. Although BLINDTRACK focuses on visually impaired users primarily, the system
provides online available training results to the sighted people too that enhances the
market opportunities and further development for the partner SMEs.
BLINDTRACK will be able to bring a significant change in training opportunities of
visu-ally impaired. Our aim is to increase the number of blind and partivisu-ally sighted athletes
with the creation of a tailored infrastructural facility that can be the first step to train
without sighted guides.
More information: www.blindtrack.eu
Issue I
Issue I.
Newsletter
Issue VI.
News
Switchable telescopic contact lens
Eric. J. Tremblay, Igor Stamenov, R. Dirk Beer, Ashkan Arianpour, and Joseph E. Ford »View Author Affiliations
Researchers have created contact lenses which, when paired with special spectacles, bestow telescopic vision on
their wearers. The contact-lens-and-spectacles combination
magnifies scene details by 2.8 times. Polarising filters in the spectacles allow wearers to switch between normal and telescopic vision. The telescopic sight system has been developed to help people suffering age-related blindness. Age-related macular degeneration is one of the most common forms of blindness and damages the part of the eye, the macula, that handles fine detail. As this area degenerates, sufferers lose the ability to recognise faces and perform tasks, such as driving and reading, that rely on picking up details.
Precise control
The contact lens created by the researchers has a central region that lets light through for normal vision. The telescopic element sits in a ring around this central region. Tiny aluminium mirrors scored with a specific pattern act as a magnifier as they bounce the light around four times within the ring before directing it towards the retina. In ordinary use, The magnified image is not seen as it is blocked by polarising filters set in a companion pair of spectacles. Wearers can switch it on by changing the filters on the spectacles so the only light falling on their retina comes from the magnified stream. For their filtering system, the researchers, led by Joseph Ford at UC San Diego and Eric Tremblay at Switzerland's EPFL, adapted a pair of glasses that Samsung produces for some of its 3D TV sets. In normal use, these spectacles create a 3D effect by alternately blocking the right or left lens. The prototype contact lens produced by the team is 8mm in diameter, 1mm thick at its centre and 1.17mm thick in its magnifying ring. „The most difficult part of the project was making the lens breathable," Dr Tremblay told the BBC.
"If you want to wear the lens for more than 30 minutes you need to make it breathable."
Gases have to be able to penetrate the lens to keep the parts of the eye covered by the contact, especially the cornea, supplied with oxygen, he said. The team has solved this problem by producing lenses riddled with tiny channels that let oxygen flow through. However, said Dr Tremblay, this made manufacturing the lenses much more difficult.
"The fabrication tolerances are quite challenging because everything has to be so precise," he said. Despite this, gas-permeable versions of the telescopic lens are being prepared that will be used in clinical trials in November, he said. Eventually it should be possible for those with age-related sight problems to wear the telescopic lenses all day. The lenses are an improvement on other ways these sight problems have been tackled which has included surgery to implant a telescopic lens or wearing bulky spectacles that have telescopic lenses forming part of the main lens. Clara Eaglen, eye health campaigns manager at the RNIB said the research looked "interesting" and praised its focus on macular degeneration.
Issue I.
Newsletter
Issue VI.
News, Events
Vision UK 2014
Date: 12.06.2014
Venue: London, UK
The leading eye health and sight loss sector conference
Vision UK 2014, the leading eye health and sight loss sector conference, will be held on Thursday 12
June, 2014 at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London.
Vision UK is the only conference for the whole of the sight loss sector. It brings together health and
social care professionals, members of health and eye care organisations and representatives from
the voluntary sector.
For more information about past Vision UK conferences please visit
http://www.vision2020uk.org.uk/ukvisionstrategy/vision-uk-conference
(Extern
al lin
k)
If you would like to register your interest in attending the conference as a delegate or exhibitor or
would like to find out about sponsorship packages, please contact the UK Vision Strategy team
on
[email protected]
"It is encouraging that innovative products such as these telescopic contact lenses are being developed, especially as they aim to make the most of a person's existing vision," she said. ""Anything that helps to maximise functioning vision is very important as this helps people with sight loss to regain some independence and get out and about again, helping to reduce isolation."
The lenses may one day find their way into other areas as the research was being funded by Darpa, the research arm of the US military."They are not so concerned about macular degeneration," he said. "They are concerned with super vision which is a much harder problem. "That's because the standard is much higher if you are trying to improve vision rather than helping someone whose eyesight has deteriorated," he said.
