Tuesday, June 06, 2006

 
Divya Bijur's First Training Session:

Note that these are magnified pictures and the original size of pictures is 7x7 pixels.
Although the size of square appears different.. basically, each square represents one pixel!

Also note that Miss Divya Bijur is a lovely 19 year old girl who was born visually challenged! She can not see anything at all. She has not seen any light or colours so far through her eyes.

Using AUXEL software, she has been able to 'SEE' these 22 images though her ears !
Meaning, the AUXEL software converts these digital images to sound in particular fashion which she has been trained to identify!

She used her finger to draw on her hand..
first the border of image and then the image details.. as a feedback of her understanding the image. Some times she needed correction and some times she needed to be shown (heard) the image, but most of the times she was correctly able to percieve the image perfectly in the first time.

We moved to the next image ONLY after the current image was correctly identified and given feedback of.

To start with, each and every pixel was played (sounded) for 1000 milliseconds (i.e. one second)
and by the time we reached 22nd picture.. each pixel was played for only 250 milliseconds.

The whole session was of 4 hours.
It included introduction of the concept, introduction of the marker sounds, and ofcouse some tiny 4x4 pixel images , as well as 5x5 and 6x6 pixel images too.

Hey there of course was lots of cake, pastries, (which she had got! YUMMY!) and laughter, fun and giggles! What is life with out it! Heheheheheheh!

Her parents got her to my home in Pune, all the way from Mumbai! Divya's Mother is an anesthetist and her father is an Eye Surgeon! They too are happy about this project!

Here are the images 'SEEN' by Divya:


left top to bottom right diagonal...

Right top to left bottom diagonal...


Two lines from left top to bottom right..
(earlier image rotated)



Two lines from right top to left bottom ..
(earlier image rotated)




Two diagonals crossing each other at centers
(aplhabet X)


Picture divided in two colors by left top to right bottom diagonal.

Picture divided in two colors by right top to left bottom diagonal.


picture divided into four squares by central horizontal and central vertical line
diagonally opposite sqaures are of same color.


Two lines from top corners to bottom center making 3 triangles.
( V Shaped)



Above image flipped vertically
(180 degrees)


above image rotated anti clockwise by 90 degrees


Above image flipped horizontically
(180 degrees)



three concentric squares of three different colours


above image with color sequence change

Window
Four squares


PLUS sign surrounded by right angles
BIG plus sign


Alphabet N



Alphabet H


Horizontal Bar Graph with 3 bars of different values

above image flipped and rotated by 90 degrees,
bars have three different colors


Next image was first TOLD to her what it is..
and then it was shown to her!
"Swastik"



She had little difficulty reading this complex image.
but later on was able to correctly give us the feedback.

It was not an examination you seee! It was her training session!
and that to FIRST ONE of her life!!!



:)

Hmmm...

As of for now we are waiting to have another session with Divya soon! And as we wait, we are making a website which can be accessed by visually challenged people independently with out any one's help and learn this language by themselves.
(They might need assistance in first few lessons.. which any sighted person can provide without any training!)

:)

There are more than 270 MILLION visually challenge people on our beautiful Earth.

I am sure you can help us reach to some of them at least!

 Cheers
Omee


Please feel absolutely free to contact us on :

omkar.nisal@gmail.com
 

Monday, June 05, 2006

 
DIVYA'S FEEDBACK IN FORM OF THIS LETTER WRITTEN TO AN E-GROUP OF VISUALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE.
-----

Hello friends.

I'm truly fortunate to be a part of AUXEL project.

I recently came across Omkar Nisal, one of the pioneers of Auxel project.
Auxel (combination of audio and pixel) is a software that helps visually challenged individuals interpret images by listening to sound frequencies varying in pitch and volume. Its a worldwide project and rapidly progressing and developing day by day.

I had an opportunity to gain a first-hand experience of the actual working of AUXEL. Its really amazing!! Its a language by itself. I'd been to Pune to Omkar's place on 4th of this month(June 2006). We had a 4 hours training session in which, he introduced me to the basics of interpretation of an image by varying sound frequencies.

Then, he introduced me to the marker sounds- the specific sounds that mark the beginning and end of a digital image and a sound that indicates the end of a row of pixels in an image.

I used a finger to tentatively draw the sounded picture on my other palm and tried to have a mental picture of it. We first worked with lines. AUXEL reads an image from left to right. I was given images of 4x4 pixels and then 7x7 pixels.

Each pixel was played for 1000 milliseconds initially. Then we progressed from lines to squares, squares with diagonals and so on. Later, the image was played for 250 milliseconds (for every pixel).

Auxel Project is all about converting a digital picture to sound (and touch) sensation.

Frankly, I was feeling really apprehensive about the whole idea of training myself to something so different!! But it has turned out to be extremely nice!! I've had just one training as yet. It has been one of the most memorable days of my life!

I was informed that this software will be made portable by installing it in mobile phones. As pictures'll be sounded, it'll be possible to move about without a cane or sighted help!! In the near future, the AUXEL team has decided to put this software in to a goggle. So it'll be both useful and trendy!!

I urge u all to visit the following web sites to find out for yourselves:

 Omkar and his team is damn courteous.
Very nice people to talk to, and they encouraged me like anything!!

The inspiration behind this project was just one dream!.. u all will get to read it in the above mentioned sites. He has literally put himself in the place of a visually challenged and is working truly Dil Se...
u all can write to him at

omkar.nisal@gmail.com

His mobile:0091-9850230070.

I'm still yet to receive many more training sessions. But, in the mean time, I felt like sharing my experience with u all.

AUXEL is assuming global importance and has recently got a person from Brazil to represent and promote it!! AUXEL team is determined to eradicate visual challenges of 270 million people world wide by 2nd November 2008!

I strongly feel, u all should benefit from this unique project.

Cheers.
Divya Bijur.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

 
Divya's Training Session #2

on 26th June 2006





This is Divya sitting with the computer with AUXEL PROJECT Software Playing !! Posted by Picasa

Saturday, June 03, 2006

 
Divya's Training Session #2

 


Divya is independently operating the computer with AUXEL PROJECT Software Playing !!

(Sanju is operating the camera. He too had come from mumbai for this session with all the video shooting gear!) Posted by Picasa

Friday, June 02, 2006

 
  Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 01, 2006

 
 

In the first session, Divya was a student of Auxel Language.
But this time Divya was the trainer herself!



Thus the video film is not about Divya being taught the auxel projet...

She herself is a trainer now!

Cheers!!! Posted by Picasa





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