Indoor Map Learning for the Visually Impaired

Trip planning is useful for all travelers, but especially important for people who are visually impaired because they can learn maps and routes prior to their upcoming journey. Many of the existing methods have limitations: (1) they typically use special visualization interfaces that are costly; and (2) they mainly focus on outdoor navigation due to the availability of existing online map and GIS databases. These limitations often make trip planning unfeasible for most people with visual impairment. We propose a novel trip-planning framework for indoor scenarios. Indoor accessible maps are generated, and an app allows users to learn building layouts and travel directions prior to their travel by rehearsing their routes on their device. This trip planning method could be easily adapted to other indoor scenes and will encourage users with visual impairment to travel easily and independently.

“Indoor Map Learning for the Visually Impaired”. Presented at the 32nd Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference Scientific/Research Proceedings and published in the Journal on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. Hao Tang, Tayo Amuneke, Juan Lantigua, Huang Zou, William Seiple*, Zhigang Zhu, 2017, Vol.5 [22].

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