Final paper

Click here for a link to my final paper, summarizing all the work I have done this summer.

Week 9 and 10: Wrapping it up

The last two weeks were spent documenting my work for the past ten weeks. I wrote my report on the three projects that I worked on this summer, VizTouch, AlphaBraille (the project to convert text into 3D models), and the program to convert photographs into 3D models. I also made my poster that I will be presenting in several conferences, such as Tapia 2013. Since AlphaBraille was the only project that I made without getting material from someone else, so that is why I focused on that for my poster.

Week 8 - Graphs and Text to 3D model

I worked on two things this week. First, I worked on a Python script that is designed to convert a string of text into OpenSCAD code and to convert that code into a 3D model for use with the MakerBot. This program uses the techniques I used to merge text and Braille to make a string that should be legible by those with visual impairments.
The second thing I accomplished was another improvement to the VizTouch program. I figured out how to make the program generate a graph of two functions
In addition, my co-workers and I helped out with a celebration event for the Americans with Disabilities Act. At this event, we exhibited all our research projects.

Week 7 - Visit from Maryland School for the Blind

This week, I did some more experimentation with the VizTouch program. With this, I figured out how to print out a VizTouch graph with the two-color feature of the MakerBot Replicator Dual. After that, some of my co-workers and I helped some visitors from the Maryland School for the Blind with a tour of the UMBC campus. In this tour, we showed some of the prints we made with the MakerBot to the students there.

Week 6 - Text and Braille

This week, I started work on figuring out how to use the MakerBot and OpenSCAD coding to merge extrusion of alphanumeric characters and Braille. This is significant because not very many of the population with visual impairments cannot read Braille, so this can extend the Viztouch program to make it more readable to a wider audience (even to sighted people). I also made my own library of Braille characters in the OpenSCAD programming language. One of the aspects of my Braille library is the ability to change the height, diameter, and area of the Braille characters. Throughout the week, I experimented with the size of the Braille characters, printing out each Alpha-Braille letter with the MakerBot.

Week 5 - Another part

This week, I was tasked with helping out with a similar project to the VizTouch project I have been working on. This project is a collaboration effort between UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park, and it is designed to make photographs more accessible to the blind by means of the MakerBot 3D printer. I have been taking several photographs and running them through the software to as part of a sort of debugging process for the program. As I ran pictures through the program, it generated 3D models for each of them.

Week 4 - DXF

Week 4 saw somewhat slower progress than the previous weeks. Some work that has been done trying to improve the making of bar charts, but it is still hard to put the full bars into DXF files rather than just their outlines. Also, I have tried to extend the VizTouch program to make it take two functions rather than just one. I am still having trouble translating the data into a DXF file.