University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, Ibaraki, Japan.
Aichi University of Education, 1 Hirosawa, Igaya, Kariya 448-8542, Aichi, Japan.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 Feb 4;17(2):291. doi: 10.3390/s17020291.
The present paper proposes a smartphone-camera-based system to assist visually impaired users in recalling their memories related to important locations, called spots, that they visited. The memories are recorded as voice memos, which can be played back when the users return to the spots. Spot-to-spot correspondence is determined by image matching based on the scale invariant feature transform. The main contribution of the proposed system is to allow visually impaired users to associate arbitrary voice memos with arbitrary spots. The users do not need any special devices or systems except smartphones and do not need to remember the spots where the voice memos were recorded. In addition, the proposed system can identify spots in environments that are inaccessible to the global positioning system. The proposed system has been evaluated by two experiments: image matching tests and a user study. The experimental results suggested the effectiveness of the system to help visually impaired individuals, including blind individuals, recall information about regularly-visited spots.
本文提出了一种基于智能手机摄像头的系统，帮助视障用户回忆他们在重要地点（称为“地点”）的记忆，这些记忆被记录为语音备忘录，当用户回到这些地点时可以播放。地点之间的对应关系通过基于尺度不变特征变换的图像匹配来确定。该系统的主要贡献在于允许视障用户将任意语音备忘录与任意地点相关联。用户除了智能手机之外不需要任何特殊设备或系统，也不需要记住录制语音备忘录的地点。此外，该系统可以识别全球定位系统无法访问的环境中的地点。该系统已经通过两项实验进行了评估：图像匹配测试和用户研究。实验结果表明，该系统有助于视障人士（包括盲人）回忆经常访问地点的信息，具有有效性。
