Coloresia: An Interactive Colour Perception Device for the Visually Impaired

A significative percentage of the human population suffer from impairments in their capacity to distinguish or even see colours. For them, everyday tasks like navigating through a train or metro network map becomes demanding. We present a novel technique for extracting colour information from everyday natural stimuli and presenting it to visually impaired users as pleasant, non-invasive sound. This technique was implemented inside a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) portable device. In this implementation, colour information is extracted from the input image and categorised according to how human observers segment the colour space. This information is subsequently converted into sound and sent to the user via speakers or headphones. In the original implementation, it is possible for the user to send its feedback to reconfigure the system, however several features such as these were Abel Gonzalez Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected] Robert Benavente Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected] Olivier Penacchio Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected] Javier Vazquez-Corral Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected] Maria Vanrell Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected] C. Alejandro Parraga Computer Vision Center / Computer Science Dept., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building O, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), e-mail: [email protected]