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• Santa Barbara Newspress
  
• Sounds may help blind navigate web maps, 93106 Faculty and Staff Newspaper, University of California at Santa Barbara, Vol. 9, No. 14, April 12, 1999-04-13
  Posted at http://www.ic.ucsb.edu/93106/041299/
  
• Association of American Geographers Presidential Column
  
• Association of American Geographers Vice-Presidential Column
  
  
  Sounds may help blind navigate web maps, 93106 Faculty and Staff Newspaper, University of California at Santa Barbara, Vol. 9, No. 14, April 12, 1999-04-13
  Posted at http://www.ic.ucsb.edu/93106/041299/
  
  Vol. 9, No. 14 -April 12, 1999
  

  By Gail Brown
  
  
  ©Kurt Rhody
  
  Dan Jacobson, a researcher in the Geography Department, has conceived of a way to help the blind navigate computer-generated maps.
  
  A new technology will help blind computer users with special sound maps that allow
  them to move through landscapes, diagrams, and graphs by using their ears and
  fingers.
  
  The new auditory maps under development by UCSB researchers rely on a glass
  "touch window" with a calibrated electric current that can be activated by the touch of
  a finger or a stylus. By touching the glass, which lies flat like a mouse pad, users can
  trace across streets, buildings, lakes, and other landscape features, activating sounds
  and spoken words.
  
  The system also employs "earcons," a play on the word "icons." Earcons are
  tone-based symbols combining pitch and rhythm that provide additional instructions
  for navigating around the map.
  
  Dan Jacobson, a visiting post-graduate researcher in the Department of Geography
  who developed the new system, recently presented the research at the national
  meeting of the Association of American Geographers, and won a specialty group
  award for it. Jacobson said that there is a huge need for sound-based maps since only
  10 to 12 percent of blind people can read Braille.
  
  He said that sound maps can improve on the daily living problems facing blind people
  by leading to a higher quality of life through enhanced orientation, mobility, and
  independence. In addition to use by the blind, sound maps may be helpful to dyslexics, young
  children, and foreign language speakers. Ten testers of the prototype, five visually impaired and five blind, successfully
  navigated a sound map after only 15 minutes of instruction. They included individuals
  who had never used a computer. The new system uses a conventional computer with Web browser software, and is
  perfectly suited for adaptation to the World Wide Web. The hyper-linked multimedia
  sound maps are layered and linked so that the user can zoom in on certain features,
  getting to know details about a portion of the landscape, or many landscapes. "It's almost as limitless as the Web behind it, allowing multiple users to access any one
  map from anywhere with a suitable Internet connection," said Jacobson, who plans to
  design a prototype for lease to schools. Along with the touch window, Jacobson is pioneering the use of a haptic mouse
  (haptic refers to the sense of touch). A haptic mouse is shaped like a conventional
  mouse but connects to a rod and a box. Its movement is based on a fixed frame of
  reference, and gives feedback to the user via effects like the feel of a washboard
  surface to indicate types of terrain, or a resistance that defines a "virtual" border or a
  wall. Jacobson is collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of researchers, including
  Reginald G. Golledge, professor of geography; Mary Hegarty, associate professor of
  psychology; and JoAnne Kuchera-Morin, professor of music and College of Letters
  and Science associate dean of computing and technology; Stephen T. Pope,
  researcher in the Department of Music, and graduate and undergraduate students from
  the Department of Computer Science.
  
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  AAG Presidential Column
  
  

   Reginald G. Golledge
   President, AAG
  Presidential Column 1999

  National Geography Learning Network
   

   Every AAG President has had a vision of what they would like to achieve while in office.  As a central plank in my statement as an AAG Presidential candidate, I suggested that our discipline needs to improve its image among peer disciplines, business, government, educational institutions, and the general public.  While recent years have seen substantial steps taken in this direction by Association representatives working alone, in conjunction with the other major geography institutions, and with outstanding individuals and corporate groups, the efforts have been piecemeal and aimed at specific targets.  I believe that, as we enter the next century, a concerted, disciplinary-wide effort is needed.  And I suggest that this can be done by building a National Geography Learning Network that clearly illustrates to the rest of the world that geographers have important things to say about the past, present, and future of Earth and its inhabitants.

   It is easy to imagine this vision becoming a reality, for many geographers are at work right now planning and producing innovative research and educational tools and scenarios that clearly point the way to how geographic research and teaching will be implemented in twenty years time.  Over the past six months I have started collecting examples of these innovative activities.  I know that, if linked and made easily accessible by appropriate front end architecture that minimizes the amount of technological training needed to use the material and maximizes the concept based learning that takes place, an extremely powerful structure can be forged.  This structure should facilitate the immediate transfer of innovative research findings into a system that facilitates geographic learning in all facets of the country’s population.

   Representations of the geographic world (maps, charts, models, graphs, tables, and pictures) have been with us for millennia. They have the potential to provide a rich array of information to people about the world they are unable to see because of its size. With the rise of the mass media, mass communications, satellite imagery, global cities, and the accelerating development of the Internet, information has become the commodity and currency of the latter half of the 20th century. And more and more emphasis is being placed on using a Digital Earth Metaphor to organize, analyze, and represent this information. New technological developments include the evolution of computer interfaces from textual interfaces to graphically based ‘Windows’ environments, an emphasis on knowledge acquisition based on location, place and hierarchy, and the increasing importance of the World Wide Web as the universal source of access to information.

  Geography As The Nexus Of A Georeferenced Universe: Access to information by georeference means that users specify locations, or footprints, on the Earth for which they request information resources of specified type, content, and temporal range. Such services have been developed as part of the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Project, one of six projects developed nationwide. The goal of the ADL project has been to provide innovative electronic analogs of library services supporting research and teaching.

   As mentioned in my note on future technologies (published in the June AAG Newsletter), digital information resources linked by the Internet are evolving into a body of knowledge that concerns every aspects of our planet. Diverse resources can be accessed and used in creating digital representations of almost any terrestrial phenomenon. Digital Libraries (DL) provide electronic environments and services that maximize the social benefits of this growing set of resources.

  In designing the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT) Project, Professor Terrence Smith (Geography and Computer Science at UCSB), states that digital library environments and services that are based on the Digital Earth Metaphor will support access to, and use of, heterogeneous digital information distributed across the Internet on the basis of georeference as well as other criteria. In particular the system will support the construction and use of personalized digital information collections called Iscapes (Information Landscapes).

    The range of applications for ADEPT is large. A few of the many scenarios exemplifying this range involve emergency response, virtual museums, virtual stores, and digital government.

  Touch and Sound: As part of geography’s research and teaching environment in the next century, multiple modalities will be used to give richer experiences of places, events and interactions.  For example, a ‘sense of touch’ is a fundamental part of life and is particularly important when interacting with proximal information. A virtual reality expressed through a haptic display allows a user to “feel” a virtual environment. By feeling, one means touching, manipulating, and or altering the simulated environment or objects. The added dimensionality that haptic, kinesthetic, and tactile interfaces provide are important for three reasons. Firstly, the display of information through the haptic senses can lead to greater immersion and realism in a virtual environment. Secondly, the haptic channel augments visual information, but also offers an independent channel for interaction for the non-visual or multi-modal presentation of geographic space. Thirdly, haptic interfaces have enormous potential for enhancing environmental experience, especially for children, and by providing information through a modality other than vision, touch extends the range of applications to a wider section of the population.

   Sound is all around us, in natural and built environments, providing an acoustic scenery of everyday life that until now has been largely neglected by most geographers.  Sounds contain information about location and the distance and direction of sound sources, as well as helping to identify objects and places. Many places are most clearly identified by sound rather than vision or touch.  Being able to “read” a sound is an underutilized geographic skill, and geography in the next century may enrich its descriptive and explanatory powers by incorporating an understanding of sound into its fundamental skills.  Audition is particularly good at sensing certain types of noise. It is expert at picking up repetitions and correlations of various kinds, giving rise to recognition of certain rhythms.  Recently, experiments in producing auditory maps have proliferated both in academic and public domains (as in vehicle guidance systems).  And where sound and touch have been combined, an even greater understanding of geographic phenomena can be obtained.

  Wearable Computers: Portable devices with access to the Internet are becoming very common. With the availability of wireless access, a user carrying these devices can obtain information from the Internet anytime anywhere. Typically, the information requested by mobile users will be personal and location dependent (geospatial) in nature. A necessary service that succinctly captures the ability of providing geo-spatial information is the “where am I and what’s around me?” scenario.  Designing and implementing ways to solve this problem offers challenges  that geographers still have not successfully addressed.  But technical advances in wearable computers, wireless protocols and perhaps remotely accessed virtual systems may provide a GPS-based workable solution.  Have you ever been lost?  With wearable Personal Guidance Systems, geographers in the future may never again face this problem.

  Typically, a mobile user requires personalized information. One user may be interested in the slope gradient and vegetative cover of an area and another may be interested in the past uses of the area (e.g. when faced with the problem of finding buried fuel and waste dumps in closed-down military bases).  The use of field computers tied to Global Positioning Systems and to Satellite Imagery accessed via Digital Libraries may be one way for the future geographer to pursue such problems.

  A National Geography Learning Network: Now, imagine the following future scenario:  A schoolteacher in Spokane obtains funds from Microsoft to take her graduating class for a four-day trip to Washington, D.C.  They plan to visit all the interesting places – the White House, the Vietnam Wall, the Presidential memorials, galleries, and of course the Smithsonian Museums.  She specifically notes that they will be visiting the National Geography Learning Center, in which there are displays that emphasize how geographic concepts are embedded in everyday life, and which are presented in imaginative ways using futuristic technologies that are designed to help people learn more about their country and the world around them.

  In keeping with the move into the 21st century, and to help pursue the vision of geography in the future that has been elaborated above, I envisage the creation of a Geographic Learning Network .  This would be in line with trends towards increased access to user-friendly technology in the nation and the world as a whole.  New learning technologies may include an immersive Virtual Environment allowing visitors to explore one or more significant parts of the world.  For example, in the context of understanding sustainable environments, this could involve taking a virtual trip through the Amazonian rain forest and experiencing the devastation and environmental change produced by deliberate firing of the forests.  Or, as part of learning about the nature of environmental hazards, visitors might experience the dramatic effects of El Niño and its consequent flooding, mudslides, and ocean-front devastation of buildings and other property.

  I am convinced that within the next 20 years immersive virtual displays will become a regular part of the geographic learning experience.  Some of this experience will be home based via personal virtual environment systems as costs associated with marketing these systems drop dramatically.  Another level of access to VE will be in the colleges and universities, where virtual environments labs will become as common a learning aid as the immersive auditory language labs that are widespread today.  The VE labs could of course provide experiences from global down to the micro level – such as helping to comprehend what happens when a part of a city is malled or closed to vehicular traffic.

  But, how do we develop and use this technology? Development of a National Geography Learning Network seems to provide one answer to this question.

  The ultimate version of a National Geography Learning Network would take current research, channel it into imaginative and innovative learning scenarios using futuristic technologies to aid analysis and representation of research results in easily accessible and user-friendly form.  Using multimedia methods, information should be available using vision, sound, and touch in particular, and in so doing will include among its users both able-bodied and disabled groups.  The NGLN would be a translator between the cutting edge of disciplinary research and the inquisitive student.  Its aim would be to make information accessible to all groups including cultural and ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups (such as the disabled) regardless of either their rural or urban location.

    The NGLN is conceived of as a three-tiered system.  As a walk-in display unit, the National Geography Learning Center, located in the nation’s capital, will be an open door walk in to touch, hear, and see displays that should include exhibits such as immersive virtual environments, desktop virtual systems, an augmented reality, examples of the use of wearable computers for fieldwork and other situations, multimedia representations with multi-modal interfaces necessary for the learning of fundamental geographic concepts, a Digital Earth hologram with zoom-in capabilities and direct access to the Alexandria Digital Map and Image Library for the environmental information (Iscapes) needed to solve specific problems, and with infrared-based multi-language auditory signage systems for navigation through the Center.

  The secondary level of the Network would consist of a number of Regional Centers.  These could be associated with colleges and universities, or institutions such as museums of science and technology.  In these centers the technology would be mostly computer based, accessing WWW facilities.  The focus would be on how everyday life is constrained by physical and human environments.  At this level the geography of events such as migrations, intraurban residential movements, commodity flows, climatic patterns, hydrological systems, air-sea interactions (where appropriate), ecological diversity, endangered species, economic base of an area, and hidden dimensions of political structure, socio/cultural/ethnic patterning, information flows, patterns of emergency services, plans for future development, and sustainable environments, could be emphasized.

  The third level of this hierarchy would be a local or community-level system distributed in local schools (K-12) or in publicly accessible places such as museums or libraries.  This aspect of the larger project will be long term, quite costly, will require major support from private foundations as well as public institutions, and will ultimately depend on the willingness of geography educators to help develop and use its offerings.  Its aim would be to make all the information available at the regional level available in a user-friendly way to K-12 teachers and their students in such a way as to encourage the use of imagination and learning by doing.  The material available at this level could be tied directly to the Geography Standards and the new Geography Curricula being implemented in many states.  It is also planned that this level be set up to facilitate the development of a “junior scientist” program with participants from all across the country contributing to both databanks and to the analysis of everyday events such as the migrations of monarch butterflies or gray whales, collation of data on shark attacks and pollution events to determine areas “safe” for surfing, monitoring changing levels of atmospheric pollution from place to place, collecting and analyzing detailed rainfall records, recording environmental effects of ecological disasters, evaluating impacts of natural or technological hazards, looking at patterns of accidents or crime statistics in the local area, and so on.  The development of this latter phase also would involve an extensive phase of training teachers to recognize and use the concepts, technologies and the information channels available for the junior scientists to participate on a daily basis in the building of national databanks, analyzing data retrieved from them, and representing the results in an updated way on a regular basis.
  How do we achieve this future?
   

  • Be first, not last, to do things.
  • Use geography’s unique powers of comprehension, representation and analysis.
  • Train teachers to train teachers to use technology and learning by doing scenarios in the classroom.
  • Participate as a discipline in pursuing this vision.
    

        Reginald G. Golledge
        President, AAG
  
  
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  AAG Vice-Presedential Column
  

  
   Reginald G. Golledge
   Vice-President, AAG
  Vice-Presidential Column 1999

  Multi-Modal User Interfaces

  Although maps have traditionally been developed for visual representation and interpretation, other sensory modalities are of increasing interest to the map maker. Tactual maps have been with us for decades, but only in the past decade have there been concerted efforts to experimentally test user capabilities for understanding maps by touch (haptic comprehension). This research has told us two important things: (i) to interpret a map using haptics, the maps must be “manageable,” and (ii) that the value of haptics is greatly accentuated by combining it with another representation mode. “Manageable” representations include (among other things) maps of a size that can be covered by a double hand span - multiple hand spans require mental integration of spatial information obtained by successively touching map areas and is very difficult to perform. It also includes interpretable and clearly distinguishable map symbols and legends. Psychologists have provided us with much information about haptic perception; cartographers have addressed the problems of symbol selection and complexity of legend.

  Recent interest in geography and elsewhere has focused on auditory mapping, either in stand-alone form or integrated with vision or touch. Since GIS user interfaces based on multiple modalities are being touted, I report briefly here on some potential future interface devices.

  Two products from ReproTronics, Inc. (RPI) include “Tactile Map Reading Kit,” and “Audio-Trip Software.” The former works in conjunction with Audio Pix, and is a series of 17 speech enhanced pictures. Originally developed to teach blind or vision impaired users the art of tactile map and graph reading, the product could be a useful adjunct to teaching the Geography Standards, for the series begins with teaching how to recognize relative position, then deals with grid referencing, distance evaluation, direction by compass (absolute) and clock face (relational), differently scaled floor plans and total map comprehension. Haptic exploration is complemented by speech description of each task. An auditory-tactile Atlas of the World is in the development stage. The company also produces “Audio-Trip Software” a navigation aid that gives a verbal description of a route plan between any selected origins and destinations using natural language instructions. The software is designed for a wearable computer (e.g. Myrna Palmtop). Its potential use obviously goes well beyond the blind or vision impaired group for which it was designed.

  In other new ventures, experiments with using “haptic soundscapes” are ongoing by a multidisciplinary group at UCSB. This technology uses a haptic mouse and a touch sensitive pad to explore on-screen representations of mapped phenomena and simple shapes. Other research (reported in a Honolulu AAG cartography session), uses simple chords to depict contouring changes. Yet other research has focused on sound-based landmarks and graduated sounds to reflect changing densities of mapped phenomena (e.g. temperature, rainfall, soils).

  Don’t be surprised, therefore, if over the next decade, yet another cartographic revolution takes place using a greater variety of perceptual forms. And if you intend being a future GIS user or developer, it might be that multiple-mode representations and complementary user interfaces will be the order of the day.

  Reginald G. Golledge
  Vice-President, AAG
  
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Finding direction by sound

Matt Cota

They arrive in different colors, contours,
and shapes revealing where we are and
warning what’s up ahead. While those
with sight can trace where they’re
coming and going, it’s not so easy
when you are blind.

    That is the focus of Dan Jacobson’s research. He has developed a software program that uses sounds
to help blind people understand where they are. “It’s not so much that generally speaking blind people are
immobile, they just don’t know what’s around the next corner or what the street sign says or how to read
the map of Kosovo in the newspaper.”

    But with the use of Jacobson’s computer sound map software, any map that
can be seen can also be heard. “It would enable you and I or anyone that wasn’t an expert to download a map
of say San Luis Obispo and say this is downtown, this is the hills to the west, and this is Cal Poly.”


    With the help of a virtual reality mouse, a blind person will also be able to feel the contours of the
map, all while a computer voice gives directions.”


    There are maps printed in braille for the blind, but the problem is there is a limited amount of information
that can be printed on a braille map. Another problem is that while every blind person would like to use a map,
only about ten percent of the blind can read braille.


    The sound map is still in its development stage.

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                              Press Release: March 1999

                         Dan Jacobson
                         Sound maps for the visually impaired

                         Maps, a highly visual medium for conveying information, will soon be available as
                         sound maps for the visually-impaired, with computerized audio and tactile features
                         that will move users through landscape features, streets and buildings via their ears
                         and fingers. The digital maps can be accessed via the Internet on a personal
                         computer.

                         Blind users who have tested the sound map prototypes obtained better and faster
                         information than a control group using only tactile maps, reports Dan Jacobson, a
                         geographer and visiting fellow at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He will
                         present his research on Wednesday, March 24 at the 95th annual meeting of the
                         Association of American Geographers in Honolulu, Hawaii.

                         The soundmap system uses a conventional computer with web browser software
                         and a "touch window." By touching adjacent areas of the touch pad, users explore
                         the size and shape of adjacent map features. "Earcons," tone-based symbols
                         combining pitch and rhythm, provide instructions for navigating around the map.
                         Environmental sounds (such as traffic noise to indicate roads) and spoken location
                         names also aid navigation.

                         All of the ten testers of the prototype, five visually impaired and five blind, were
                         able to successfully navigate the map after fifteen minutes of instruction, even those
                         who had never before used a computer.

                         Jacobson is working with a haptic mouse, a device that delivers force feedback
                         through the hand holding the mouse. The haptic mouse offers a three-dimensional
                         impression of a virtual map surface through the applications of different haptic
                         effects. For example, a "virtual wall" would offer slight resistance. Requiring extra
                         force from the user in order to pass through, this innovation allows perception of
                         the shape and layout of the map features. An opposite effect, called a gravity well,
                         pulls a user into a predetermined object.

                         Jacobson's work is supported by a grant from UC-Santa Barbara and a Mary E.
                         Switzer Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special
                         Education and Rehabilitation, National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation
                         Research.

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University of California Press Release 'New computer sound maps will help blind', April 1999


Press Release April 1999
 

                     NEW COMPUTER SOUND MAPS WILL HELP BLIND

                     A new technology will help blind computer users with special sound maps that
                     allow them to move through landscapes, diagrams and graphs by using their ears
                     and fingers, using a personal computer.

                     The new auditory maps, being developed by researchers at the University of
                     California, Santa Barbara, rely on a glass "touch window" with a calibrated electric
                     current that can be activated by the touch of a finger or stylus. By touching the glass
                     which lies flat like a mousepad, users can trace across streets, buildings, lakes, and
                     other landscape features, activating sounds, like traffic, as well as spoken words,
                     such as street names.

                     The system also employs "earcons," a play on the word "icons," which are
                     tone-based symbols combining pitch and rhythm. Earcons provide additional
                     instructions for navigating around the map.

                     Dan Jacobson, a post graduate researcher in the Department of Geography who
                     developed the new system, recently presented the research at the national meeting
                     of the Association of American Geographers. Jacobson explained that there is a
                     huge need for these sound-based maps, since only 10 to 12 percent of blind
                     people read Braille.

                     He said that sound maps can improve on the daily living problems facing blind
                     people by leading to higher quality of life through enhanced orientation, mobility and
                     independence.

                     He reported that ten testers of the prototype, five visually impaired and five blind,
                     were able to successfully navigate the map after only fifteen minutes of instruction.
                     This included individuals who had never before used a computer. The blind users
                     who tested the sound map prototypes also obtained better and faster information
                     than a control group using only tactile maps.

                     The testers gave the sound maps high marks. One 37-year-old visually impaired
                     female said, "It was very easy to use, you could stop, take your time, or go back to
                     get information. It helps you to build up a mental picture of the area. It would be
                     good for mobility, if you wanted to get arounda  new area, and build up a picture of
                     how things are, in relation to each other."

                     Jacobson mentioned that the increasingly visual nature of the World Wide Web has
                     frustrated many people with limited vision in their efforts to access that information.

                     The system uses a conventional computer with web browser software, and is
                     perfectly suited for adaptation to the World Wide Web. The hyper-lined
                     multimedia sound maps are layered and linked so that the user can zoom in on
                     certain features, getting to know all the details about a certain portion of landscape,
                     or many landscapes.

                     "It's almost as limitless as the web behind it. Allowing multiple users to access any
                     one map from anywhere With a suitable internet connection" said Jacobson who
                     plans to design a prototype for lease to schools. "There are many applications in
                     addition to use by the blind, for example, sound maps may be helpful to dyslexics,
                     young children, and foreign language speakers." A set of cognitive and perceptual
                     experiments Are planned to provide guidelines for conveying graphics through
                     Sound and touch.

                     Along with the touch window, Jacobson is also pioneering the use of a haptic
                     mouse -- haptic refers to sense of touch. The haptic mouse is shaped like a
                     conventional mouse but is connected to a rod and a box. It's movement is based on
                     a fixed frame of reference, and gives feedback to the user via various effects such
                     as the feeling of a washboard surface to indicate certain types of terrain, or a feeling
                     of resistance that defines a "virtual" border or a wall.

                     In order to disseminate the technique as widely as possible The research team is
                     working on software tools that would enable sighted users to easily convert
                     conventional computer graphics to auditory maps.

                     Jacobson is joined in this research by an interdisciplinary team of researchers
                     including, Reginald G. Golledge, professor of geography; Mary Hegarty, associate
                     professor of psychology; JoAnne Kuchera-Morin, professor of music and
                     associate dean of Computing and Technology, College of Letters and Science; Dr.
                     Stephen Pope from the music department; And graduate and undergraduate
                     students from the Computer Science department.

                     The work is supported by a special grant called Research Across Disciplines or
                     RAD, from the Office of Research at UCSB; and by the Mary E. Switzer
                     Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education
                     and Rehabilitation, National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

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