AspecTU

The challenge

Many visually impaired people have difficulty leaving their home to do everyday tasks such as shopping and/or keeping appointments. This mainly is a problem in unfamiliar situations and areas, where it is difficult to navigate independently.

The solution

A technical tool, glasses, is being made for this project which can be used for the visually impaired target group. This is initially tested and applied in the Hortus Oculus garden in Delft. By means of QR codes, what is "seen" is translated by the cameras in the glasses into an audio signal. This way the person gets to hear what he or she is looking at. The cameras are implemented in glasses as this offers a number of advantages: The direction of vision corresponds to the direction of the cameras. In other words: what is being viewed is - if a QR code is present - translated into an audio signal. Secondly, a pair of glasses is a common object - if someone wears glasses, this does not necessarily mean that this person is visually impaired. After this our latest update is that the product now can recognize faces. This is just the first step towards the solution we are thinking of. We want to assist visually impaired people in their daily lives: not in the situations they are used to, but going from A to B in unknown situations. Without QR-codes. For this we need help and that is why we are participating this contest...