JPS6329781A - Tactile information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a tactile information processing device, particularly a tactile information processing device that converts input character information such as characters, numbers, or symbols into Braille and outputs the converted character information for display. It is related to.

[Prior art] Braille is known as a writing system used by visually impaired people. Manual translation into Braille has been carried out for a long time, but manual methods are time-consuming and require a great deal of effort. Met. At present, various computer-based Braille translation systems have been proposed, and it is thought that the labor burden on translators will be further reduced.

In braille processing using a computer, in addition to outputting braille on paper, a method is also being considered in which a visually impaired person can directly feel the braille using a braille output display device. According to this method, a person with a disability can directly operate the device to output text information stored on a magnetic disk etc. in Braille, or
Alternatively, it becomes possible to tactilely type in character information from another keyboard in real time, or to output characters or image information input from an optical reader or the like as tactile information.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The conventional tactile information processing device has three rows and two columns of display pins so as to display a 6-dot Braille pattern, and each display pin is arranged according to the Braille pattern to be displayed. Regarding the driving method of the 0 display pin, which has a configuration to protrude from the display surface, there are two types of driving methods: one in which the display pin continues to protrude when the same Braille pattern is continued to be displayed, and one in which the display pin continues to protrude during the display period. For example, a method of vibrating at a frequency of about 200 hertz is known.

However, in both methods, the configuration of the Braille pattern displayed, that is, the distance between the protruding display pins,
The Braille pattern configuration defined by the number of pins constituting one display point is constant. Furthermore, in the method of vibrating the display pin, the display pin is vibrated at a constant frequency.

In other words, since the configuration of the Braille display pattern, including the spatial and temporal conditions of the Braille pattern, is constant, the physical conditions such as the size of the fingers of the visually impaired person using the device, Further, the problem related to the time conditions for outputting 0 Braille characters, which had the problem of not being able to set the device according to one's preferences, will be described in detail below.

The commonly used 6-dot Braille has a matrix configuration of 3 rows and 2 columns, and all characters must be represented by a total of 6 display points, and there are only 64 possible combinations of these 6 points. Therefore, one Braille pattern must correspond to several characters.
When expressing numbers and symbols, one Braille pattern is made to correspond to two types, letters and numbers, by preceding it with inverted type Braille from several companies as shown in FIG.

On the other hand, on a normal keyboard for inputting information, each key is associated with one character, so when converting numbers and symbols input from the keyboard into Braille and outputting them in Braille, the numbers and symbols are preceded by numbers and symbols. It was necessary to input in social braille.

Furthermore, in the braille output device using the above-mentioned display pin, the braille of these several companies is treated as one braille, and the output time of the grain cylinder is the same as that of normal braille. Therefore 1
Depending on the tactile speed of the visually impaired person who is tactilely sensing the Braille, the output time of these several companies' Braille can sometimes feel cumbersome.

This is a particular problem in systems that output character information input from the keyboard in Braille in real time, because the Braille corresponding to the last input character continues to be displayed until the next character is input from the keyboard.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, the present invention employs tactile information processing that converts input text information consisting of characters, numbers, symbols, etc. into Braille and displays and outputs it. The apparatus includes: a plurality of display elements in a two-dimensional matrix that are controlled to be in a protruding or non-protruding state when driven on a tactile display surface; a means for driving the plurality of display elements according to a predetermined Braille display pattern; A configuration is adopted in which means is provided for variably controlling the temporal conditions when the display element is driven by the driving means to output a predetermined Braille pattern.

[Function] According to the above configuration, the output time of a predetermined Braille pattern, such as Braille from several companies, can be variably controlled according to the user's physical conditions and preferences.

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on the example shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of a tactile information processing system according to the present invention.In this embodiment, both text information and image information can be output as tactile information. It is read at 1° and input to the control unit 2 via the A/D converter LA.

In addition, the character information to be output in Braille is either prepared on a magnetic disk of the input device l, or input directly from the keyboard of the input device l such as a personal computer.
The information may be transferred to the control unit 2. In the following embodiment, the input device 1 is assumed to be composed of a personal computer having at least a keyboard and a display, and character information to be input is assumed to be input from the keyboard of the input device 1 in real time.

The control unit 2 is composed of a microprocessor and the like. The control unit 2 includes a ROMII that stores a control program to be described later.
, and a RAM 12 used as a work area for the control section 2 and a buffer memory for display information.

The main mechanism of the control unit 2 regarding character information processing is to use the character generator 4 to convert character information expressed in ASCII codes transferred from the input device 1 into 3 rows 2.
The method is to convert it into a six-dot Braille pattern in columns and sequentially display and output it on the tactile section 3.

The tactile section 3 is constructed as shown in FIG. here,
In Figure 0, which shows only the configuration for forming one display point, reference numeral 17 is the display surface of the surface of the tactile part 3, and the display pin 15 is provided with a hole 17a so that the display bottle 15 can go in and out. In the case of this embodiment, it is configured to vibrate in the protruding drive state. Therefore, the display bottle 15 is attached to the tip of the bimorph 16, and the display bin 15 is attached to the tip of the bimorph 16.
By driving the input device 15 in the evening wave, the input device 15 is caused to vibrate in a state in which it protrudes from the display surface 17.

The display bins in Figure 2 are 20 rows and 5 columns as shown in Figure 3.
0 placed on the display surface 17 as a dimensional matrix shape
In the figure, a black circle with a number indicates a display point where the display bottle 15 protrudes and vibrates, and a white circle with a symbol N indicates a non-display point where the pin does not protrude.

In this way, in this embodiment, using the tactile section 3 which has a larger number of display points than the 3 rows and 2 columns of Braille patterns, Braille output is performed in the display patterns shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.

In the output examples shown in FIGS. 3 and 84, each display point is represented by two trees of display bins. Also, the number of non-display points placed between display points is one in the horizontal direction,
There are two in the vertical direction. In this way, when a display bin array larger than the minimum number of pins constituting normal six-dot Braille is used, not only Braille but also image representation by dot matrix becomes a circuit.

The braille pattern in Figure 3 is the grain cylinder that is displayed before the numbers and symbols, and the braille pattern in Figure 4 is the letter "E" if the grain cylinder is not preceded, and the letter "E" is displayed if the grain cylinder is in front of it. It means the number "5".

In this embodiment, each of the above braille formats can be selected using a setting device 5 connected to the control section 2. The setting device 5 is composed of a counter element, and the control section 2 reads the setting value of the setting device 5 to adjust the output time when outputting the Braille characters from several companies as shown in FIG. The setting value of the setting device 5 can be controlled to a desired value using the keyboard of the input device 1 or an input device that can be operated by a user who can tactile Braille.

FIG. 5 shows the output control procedure of the control unit 2 stored in the ROMII of FIG. Hereinafter, the control operation of the control section 2 for outputting poems in Braille will be explained with reference to FIG. Here, a control example will be shown in which character information input from the keyboard of the input device 1 is processed in real time.

The control unit 2 first reads the specification information of the Braille display output format from the setting device 5 in the stave 2 shown in FIG.

Next, in step S2, a 23.0 Hz clock is generated as a drive signal for driving the bimorph of the cypress in FIG. A circuit element such as an oscillator (not shown) is used for clock generation.

In step S3, the inverted type Braille characters from several companies shown in Figure 3 are stored in the RAM.
12 predetermined areas.

In step S4, a key input is performed on the input device 1, and it is determined whether character information corresponding to the input key input is transferred to the control unit 2. If the key input is performed manually, the process jumps to step S5, and if no input is performed, the process jumps to step S7. When inputting character information from the input device Til, in this embodiment, numbers and characters are identified as described below, so there is no need to input several lines before the numbers.

In step S5, the one character A transferred from the input device 1
A Braille pattern corresponding to character information expressed in SCII code or the like is read out from the character generator 4.

The read Braille display pattern is R in step S6.
It is stored in a predetermined area of AM12.

Next, in step S7, it is determined whether the key force detected in step S4 is an input of a numeric key. If the input character information is not a number, the process moves to step S12, where the braille display pattern prepared in step S6 is transferred from a predetermined area in the RAM 1Z to the tactile section 3 and displayed in braille.

After step S12, the process loops to step S3.

When outputting Braille, the bimorph 16 shown in FIG. 82(B) is driven by the clock, and the display bin 15 vibrates while being protruded from the display surface 17.

On the other hand, if the input character information is character information, the process moves to step S8, and the several lines prepared in the RAM 1Z (see FIG. to display it.

The number group output time in step S8 is determined by the loop process in step S9510. That is, step S9
Then, the setting value of the setting device 5 transferred to the RAM 12 is decremented by 1, and then in step SIO it is determined whether the result is positive. If the count value h<o, the process loops to step S8. Therefore, the several group output time in step S8 is controlled according to the value set in the setting device 5.

In step Sit, as in step S1, the contents of the setting device 5 are read again and transferred to the counter area of the RAM 12.For 0 or more, the RAM 2S is used as a counter, but the registers forming the control unit 2 are used. It is also possible to perform output time control for several lines.

After step Sll is completed, the process moves to step S12, and a braille pattern corresponding to a number is outputted following several lines.

In the above configuration, the user can touch the input device 1 by touching the Braille characters that are sequentially output one character at a time to the tactile section 3 with his/her finger.
The input character information is read in Braille, and the setting device 5 can be adjusted as desired to control the number group output time prior to outputting the Braille corresponding to the number. Therefore, the user can set the desired number of groups output time according to his or her own tactile speed. If the output time setting value is O, it is also possible to stop the output of several groups.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, since the numbers are detected and several lines are automatically output, it is possible to save the effort of inputting several lines one by one from a character input device. Further, since the output time of several lines is controlled to a constant value, there is no fear that several groups will be output for longer than the output time selected by the user and disturb the tactile rhythm.

In the above configuration, the output time of several lines is controlled, but it is also possible to control other temporal output conditions according to the settings of the setting device 5.

The time conditions for control include step S2 in FIG.
A possible example is the clock frequency for driving the display bin, which is controlled to a fixed value. In this case, if the claw 2 frequency for driving the display bin is controlled according to the setting of the setting device 5, the user can set the driving frequency of the display bin according to his/her preference.

Furthermore, if the RAM 12 has a certain amount of buffer capacity, it may be possible to change the output interval of characters sequentially output to the tactile section 3 according to the setting of the setting device 5.

When outputting numbers in Braille, in addition to prefixing each number with several lines, it is also possible to add several lines at the beginning of a string consisting only of numbers, and add a space at the end of the string consisting of numbers. One possible method is to distinguish it from other character strings. In order to make such a distinction, if it is determined in the determination process at step SL4 in FIG. Deciding whether to print a few lines,
For example, by transitioning from a regular string to a numeric string, or from a numeric string to a regular string,
What is necessary is to set a flag to be reset and decide whether to output a number group depending on the setting state of this flag.

For temporal control of the Braille display pattern, it is conceivable to use an analog input means such as a volume as an operating member of the setting device 5. In addition to adjusting the output time settings of several groups using the setting device 5, a method such as adding control information for each predetermined unit of information amount from the input device 1 can be considered.

Further, in the above embodiment, character information was illustrated as information output by the tactile section 3, but according to the tactile section 3 having a relatively large area as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a dot matrix is used. It is possible to output symbols and other image information. Additionally, a configuration that outputs multiple Braille characters simultaneously is also conceivable.

In the above embodiment, an example was shown in which the display bottle was vibrated, but it is also possible to implement a system in which the display pin is held in a continuously protruding state. The character or image information to be output processed is not limited to the input device 1, but may be read by the optical reading device 10, and the information input method is of course not limited to the above.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above, according to the present invention, in a tactile information processing device that converts character information consisting of input characters, numbers, symbols, etc. into Braille and outputs it for display, the tactile display Controlled to be in a protruding or non-protruding state when driven on the surface 2
A plurality of display elements arranged in a dimensional matrix, means for driving the plurality of display elements according to a predetermined Braille display pattern, and a time taken to drive the display elements by the drive means to output the predetermined Braille pattern. The system employs a configuration that includes means for variably controlling the physical conditions. Therefore, it is possible to control the output of predetermined Braille characters such as number groups, or the temporal display conditions such as the vibration frequency when the display element is vibrated, according to the user's tactile speed, preference, etc. A tactile information processing device 2 can be provided.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a tactile information processing system employing the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the configuration of the tactile section in FIG. 1, and FIGS. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the control procedure of the control section of FIG. 1. ■...Input device 2...Control unit 3...Tactile unit 4...Character generator 5...Setting device 10...Optical reading device 11
...ROM 12...RAM device 70-7 diagram M1 Go to Figure 15: r, Hino Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) In a tactile information processing device that converts character information consisting of input characters, numbers, symbols, etc. into Braille and outputs it for display, the tactile display surface is in a protruding or non-protruding state when driven. a plurality of display elements in a two-dimensional matrix to be controlled; means for driving the plurality of display elements according to a predetermined Braille display pattern; and a drive means for driving the display elements to output a predetermined Braille pattern. 1. A tactile information processing device characterized by comprising means for variably controlling temporal conditions when performing tactile information processing. 2) The tactile information processing device according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined Braille display pattern is number-code Braille, and the output time of the number-code Braille is controlled by the variable control means. .