A Discussion about Some Key Points of Outdoor Blind Guidance Based on Geographic Information System
Mi Chen · Geo-information Science · 2014
Geographic information technologies are playing increasingly significant roles in supplementing the blind with spatial cognition, enhancing their mobility of outdoor activities and their quality of life in urban area. Increasing researches have appeared in the fields of electronics and computer science. Technologies related to RFID,infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi, ultrasonic and image recognition have been employed to develop tools for urban barriers detection. Barricade detection with electronic tools; however, cannot well satisfy the needs of the blind's outdoor activities. As a matter of fact, researchers become increasingly aware of the importance of geographic information(including semantic information), with which the more familiar and convenient paths can be chosen, and the risks of outdoor activities can be reduced. With the development of geographic information technology, the abroad correlated researches have focused on the exploration of the requirements of spatial perception for the blind, and these researchers set geographic information to be the foundation of assisting outdoor blind guidance. Accordingly, geographic information technologies are integrated with other technologies to serve the blind guidance. However, this kind of research is quite rare in China. From the perspective of geographic information, this article gives a summary of relevant researchillustrates current issues, and point out the development tendency. It also aims at providing essential theoretical support for the development of related hardware and software, and further promoting the application of geographic information technologies in the field of blind service.