A distributed architecture for facilitating the integration of blind musicians in symphonic orchestras (original) (raw)

DIAMI: Distributed Intelligent Environment for Blind Musicians

2009

The emergence of new technologies provides the opportunity to develop novel solutions that facilitate the integration of the visual disabled people in different activities of our daily life. This paper presents a distributed intelligent architecture, called DIAMI, focused on facilitating the integration of blind musicians in orchestras. The DIAMI architecture provides a distributed, ubiquitous system aimed at providing a way for blind musicians to receive the instructions of the orchestra conductor in an unobstructive manner. The structure of the DIAMI architecture and the preliminary results obtained are presented in detail within this paper.

A system to assist visually disabled musicians to participate in orchestras

2015

Music is an activity primarily associated with the capacity to hear, but in Western forms there is a significant emphasis on an orchestral musician's ability to see when rehearsing and performing. In both of these circumstances, the musician relies on being able to see the conductor's cues in order to translate the physical gestures into musical expression, feeling, tempo and musical emphases. The rehearsal environment is even more complicated in that there are often sporadic musical entry-points as the ensemble jumps between sections of a score. This paper outlines early-stage research which aims to alleviate some of the difficulties encountered by blind musicians in an orchestral environment.

RUDO: A Home Ambient Intelligence System for Blind People

Sensors, 2017

The article introduces an ambient intelligence system for blind people which besides providing assistance in home environment also helps with various situations and roles in which blind people may find themselves involved. RUDO, the designed system, comprises several modules that mainly support or ensure recognition of approaching people, alerting to other household members' movement in the flat, work on a computer, supervision of (sighted) children, cooperation of a sighted and a blind person (e.g., when studying), control of heating and zonal regulation by a blind person. It has a unified user interface that gives the blind person access to individual functions. The interface for blind people offers assistance with work on a computer, including writing in Braille on a regular keyboard and specialized work in informatics and electronics (e.g., programming). RUDO can complement the standard aids used by blind people at home, it increases their independence and creates conditions that allow them to become fully involved. RUDO also supports blind people sharing a home with sighted people, which contributes to their feeling of security and greater inclusion in society. RUDO has been implemented in a household for two years, which allows an evaluation of its use in practice.

A Smart Assistance System for Visually Impaired People

International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering, 2021

Resolving the problems of individuals with Visual, Hearing, and Vocal Impairment through a solitary serving framework could be a tough task. Various current investigations focus on the resolution of the problems of 1 of them on top of challenges however not all. The work centers around chase down a noteworthy procedure that guides the externally weakened by permitting them to listen to what's self-addressed as text and it's accomplished by the tactic that catches the image through a camera and converts the content accessible as voice signals. This planned framework provides a path to people with Hearing weakening to image scan that is in morphology by discourse to message modification procedure and that we, in addition, provides a route to the vocally disabled to handle their voice by the guide of text to voice transformation strategy. each one of those 3 arrangements was regulated to be in an exceedingly solitary exceptional framework. each one of those exercises consists o...

On the Study of Accessibility and Interactivity for the Visually Impaired Computer Musician

Anais do XI Simpósio Internacional de Cognição e Artes Musicais - SIMCAM 11, 2015

With the advancement of computing technology, graphical representations of language and music were naturally incorporated to the digital media. Even though in modern personal computer there is an audio output, it is undeniable that the most relevant data output is visual (shown on the computer screen). In these circumstances, the visually impaired user has a major disadvantage to operate computers and retrieve its information in the same level of the sighted ones. As for music made with computers, blind musicians may face the challenge of being forced to handle graphical symbols, via aiding softwares, as the only possible way of operating these tools. However, these same musicians may present aural advantages, as compared to the sighted ones, to the perception of certain acoustics aspects, such as timbre recognition and sound localization. This theoretical work presents 4 themes of further development that will promote accessibility and explore the aural enhanced capabilities of blind musicians by means of computational resources. They are: 1) Stenographic musical notation, 2) Global reader; 3) Haptic-controlled soundscape synthesis; 4) Adaptivesynesthetic generative music model. Themes 1 and 2 are predominantly related to the accessibility, while themes 3 and 4 explore the aural advantages of the blind musicians. These themes are here introduced, described and discussed.

An enhanced musical experience for the deaf

Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI 09, 2009

Music is a multi-dimensional experience informed by much more than hearing alone, and is thus accessible to people of all hearing abilities. In this paper we describe a prototype system designed to enrich the experience of music for the deaf by enhancing sensory input of information via channels other than in-air audio reception by the ear. The system has two main components-a vibrating 'Haptic Chair' and a computer display of informative visual effects that correspond to features of the music. The Haptic Chair provides sensory input of vibrations via touch. This system was developed based on an initial concept guided by information obtained from a background survey conducted with deaf people from multi-ethnic backgrounds and feedback received from two profoundly deaf musicians. A formal user study with 43 deaf participants suggested that the prototype system enhances the musical experience of a deaf person. All of the users preferred either the Haptic Chair alone (54%) or the Haptic Chair with the visual display (46%). The prototype system, especially the Haptic Chair was so enthusiastically received by our subjects that it is possible this system might significantly change the way the deaf community experiences music.

Multimodal communication for vision and hearing impairments

Conference and Workshop on …

Multimodal communication is often perceived as an opportunity to offer alternate channels to access information taking into account users in different contexts (at their working desk, driving the car, etc.). On the other side, however, multimodality can be used not only to offer an access to information 'anytime, anywhere', but also as a mean to convey the same information to the user in more than one form in the same time, with the goal to help him/her overcoming difficulties related to cognitive, sensorial or physical disabilities. This paper shows how a general user can be profiled according to his/her abilities in agreement with the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) published by OMS, and how this profile can be used by adaptive navigation systems: a) to offer the most suitable presentation of the existing information, by changing visual appearance, or by offering alternate means of presentation, such as TTS, sonification, Braille bars, and so forth; b) to provide alternate means of navigation, using not only the standard keyboard/mouse, but also offering interaction using tactile-feedback devices or voice control, according to the possibilities of the user; c) to select the most appropriate semantic level of the information required: the same information can be stored in different forms to suit different levels of cognitive disabilities (eg. rewritten in simplified form, or processed by programs for symbolic communication dealing with this simplified form) and physical impairments (e.g. reshaped in simpler conceptual structures to allow the navigation with non-conventional control devices). The paper will present the general architecture of Violin, a framework for multimodal and multichannel accessibility, and describes an application for information retrieval over the Internet.

SAVI: Smart Assistant for Visually Impaired

As technology advances in the modern world, it has an impact on the lives of the visually impaired. A lot of products are brought in to help them, to make their lives easier. Smart Assistant for Visually Impaired (SAVI) is one such device that contains various available technologies and integrates them into a multipurpose device that can be used by visually impaired people. It supports both the legally blind and completely blind category of visually impaired people. The drawback of the existing products is that they are very costly. It also does not provide a mechanism to alert the user's well-wishers during a time of emergency. The aim is to build a system that will be compatible in all aspects as well as provide scope for extension in the future. The device mainly detects and recognizes objects. In case of an emergency situation, there is a provision for the user to send an SOS alert message to the concerned people. The device accommodates a text reader which would help visually impaired people read non-braille text. It also accommodates an E-tracker which would help their wellwishers to track the visually impaired person. Implementing such a system will help people with visual disabilities to be more confident and independent.

The RAMPE Project: Interactive, Auditive Information System for the Mobility of Blind People in Public Transports

2005

The RAMPE project aims to design, realize and experiment a system for the assistance and information of blind people so that they can increase their mobility and autonomy in public transport. It is intended to equip bus or tramway stops or to be installed in poles of transport interactions. It is based on smart hand-held Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with embedded speech synthesis and able to communicate by a wireless WiFi connection with fixed equipment in the bus or tram stations. The main characteristics of the smart hand-held devices are: they can present and filter vocal messages, they can adapt themselves to the type of information system available at the stations, they can react to real-time information sent by the stations. A special care has been given to the design of the man machine interface and to the management of priorities in the real-time vocal information application.

A Smart Assistance for Visually Impaired

IRJET, 2023

Independent living is one of the major concerns for people around the globe. But when it comes to people who are visually challenged, they always rely on other people to get their daily things done. In today's advanced technical environment, the need for self-sufficiency is recognized in the situation of visually impaired people who are socially restricted. More than 90% of individuals with blindness and low vision are mostly seen in developing countries. Visually impaired people always need the help of others, and they rely on others for essential needs. In this project, we developed a system that uses a conglomeration of technologies like Object detection, Speech Recognition, etc, to solve the problems faced by blind people to a certain extent. It makes use of a camera module that acts as a virtual eye for the visually impaired and helps them recognize objects surrounding them. This system also includes other features like searching Wikipedia and sending emails. All the features are implemented using a headset that provides voice assistance for an easier lifestyle for the visually impaired. The whole system was developed in the Python programming language.