Assistive Text Reading from Natural Scene for Blind Persons

Text information serves as an understandable and comprehensive indicator, which plays a significant role in navigation and recognition in our daily lives. It is very difficult to access this valuable information for blind or visually impaired persons, in particular, in unfamiliar environments. With the development of computer vision technology and smart mobile applications, many assistive systems are developed to help blind or visually impaired persons in their daily lives. This chapter focuses on the methods of text reading from natural scene as well as their applications to assist people who are visually impaired. With the research work on accessibility for the disabled, the assistive text reading technique for the blind is implemented in mobile platform such as smart phone, tablet, and other wearable device. The popularity and interconnection of mobile devices would provide more low-cost and convenient assistance for blind or visually impaired persons.