Paper Info
Title
Enhanced Synthesized Text Reader for Visually Impaired Users
Abstract
In this paper we propose a prototype of a spatialized text reader for visually impaired users. The basic functions of the system are reading arbitrary files, converting text into speech using different synthesized voices and spatializing synthesized speech. Visually impaired users can thus listen to the content of a file read by various synthesized voices at different spatial positions. Some metadata (e.g. pre-inserted tags) has to be added to the file before processing in order to define the voice, pitch, reading rate and originating spatial position for any part of the content. We believe such a way of electronic book reading can be a significant improvement for visually impaired users if compared to mundane and dull screen readers. The core of the system is based on Java platform using FreeTTS speech synthesizer and JOAL positioning library. The latter is improved by the external MIT Head Related Impulse Response (HRIR) library. The use of headphones is obligatory in order to perceive spatial sound correctly. The system is a work in progress and is currently under evaluation by twelve visually impaired test subjects.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1109/ACHI.2010.33
Saint Maarten
Keywords
Field
DocType
synthesized speech,various synthesized voice,arbitrary file,spatialized text reader,electronic book reading,freetts speech synthesizer,joal positioning library,different spatial position,spatial position,visually impaired users,different synthesized voice,enhanced synthesized text reader,impulse response,speech,speech synthesis,metadata,work in progress,voice synthesis,electronic publishing,java
Headphones,Metadata,Speech synthesis,Electronic book,Work in process,Computer science,Human–computer interaction,Software,Java,Multimedia,Electronic publishing
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-1-4244-5693-2
3
0.48
References 
Authors
6
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jaka Sodnik117817.77
Grega Jakus21047.80
Sašo Tomažic351.60