Blind Sailing - Help Please

[Frank Hatfull]

Hi

My son Max won the YK Blind Sailing Championships on keel boats this year.

So I have started trying to get more involved in helping out with Blind Sailing - see Blind Sailing.

I have just returned from a tripfrom London to Harwich with a totally blind sailor as crew.

It would be great to have a simple rolling road Nav Aid that beeped port or starboard to help a blind sailor hold a course.


Any ideas or input would be very welcome


Frank

Tantrum of Abersoch

[Blue Stocking]

Congratulations to your son, and for you entering into a vast world of technology and experiences few can imagine.
My 21yr old son, who is totally blind is in his 4th year at Exeter Uni, as a triple language major, moving on to law studies.
He sails incredibly in the groove, has raced go-carts, and took the life skills driving course while at RNIB Worchester.
There is so much cutting edge work being done for the VI (visually impaired) that leaves us sighted folk in awe.
I tell my son often that I am 3 times his age, but only half the man he is.
Please PM me if I can help.

[idpnd]

The beeper would probably be quite easy to implement using XTE values, once a route has been activated?

[GPS-Marco]

A beeper would be nice but a speeching interface would be great. We can hardly imagine the possible usages of a speeching navigation software for blind and non-blind sailors. Has anybody experience with any GPL speech library?

Ciao, Marco.

[Frank Hatfull]

How does one put a change request into the development team to see if its possible?

[Netsurfer]

Originally Posted by Frank Hatfull

How does one put a change request into the development team ...?

There is a tracker for all this at OpenCPN::Tracker All Projects: Tasklist

Registration is once needed.

On the upper left side you'll find a drop-down list where you can switch over to a certain project.

For feature requests please use the 'OpenCPN - Feature Requests' project: OpenCPN::Tracker OpenCPN - Feature Requests: Tasklist

Additionally I can imagine that e.g. the beeper functionality could perhaps be implemented via a plugin (this will have the advantage that there is no need for code changes to the core which highly increases the chances of implementation). Therefor you probably could add it also to the 'Plugin System' project OpenCPN::Tracker Plugin System: Tasklist

Gunther

[sailias]

[QUOTE=GPS-Marco;544200]A Has anybody experience with any GPL speech library?


Ubuntu's both latest two releases are speech enabled. Will check to see how it works and what libraries are used. I too have a friend who could make use of this, while sited she sailed the pacific from Japan to LA while in the Navy. Lots her site through a degenerative illness later in life. Still the hottest sailor on my former home waters. Everyone wants to crew with her..

[sailias]

Frank and Marco;

Here is the thread on the Ubuntu forum for your review;
Ubuntu for the blind... - Ubuntu Forums

Marco...if you need help with this Im in, although not a programmer, test monkey and researcher are my specialties when it comes to linux, as well as documentation..

[sailias]

Marco:

Here ya go, will take it for a test drive and report back. If you would like to converse on this issue feel free to contact me off list.

Vinux: Audio Samples

[sailias]

The gnome standard seems to have focused on "Orca" which is supplied by most distros. see: Orca - GNOME Live! Its functions as a screen reader. However in order for it too function, it requires the application to support the assistive technology service provider interface (AT-SPI). More information on AT-SPI can be found here, Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now all of this appears to be gnome specific, however it should be portable. Will see if there are other initiatives which there typically are as gnome and kde the major desktops are pretty competitive. More later.

/ch

[sailias]

Since OCPN is gtk based here is a reference on how gtk implements the service provider: GAP/AtkGuide/Gtk - GNOME Live!

And the concurrent reference for KDE: KDE Accessibility - KDE And Assistive Technologies

Now OCPN relies on the wx widgets here is the reference or including assistive technology: Building Accessible Applications - wxWidgets

Hope that helps.

Tested Vlinux which is an ubuntu cousin as its interesting. The main observation is that while orca works as a screen reader similar to Jaws the defacto standard in the windows world, the applications must be speech enabled. The second this is that orca needs to be trained somehow and I dont know if this is possible as it reads everything on a specific screen....drives you nuts as it goes on and on and on...Jaws is much better in that respect. However its a start.

Best regards hope that helps some. If there is anything else I can do, just let me know. As said, Im not a developer but this is interesting stuff

/ch