Introducing bviTouch for iOS; explore digital images using touch and sound

Thanks for trying the app.

If you haven't tried the tutorial section yet, give it a try. It may answer some of your questions about how to distinguish between the colors and brightness levels.

As you surmised, the volume is used to indicate the relative brightness of each color (red, green, and blue). For a black screen, there would be no volume at all. For a white screen, full volume for all three colors (musical tones).

The pictures are definitely larger in landscape mode, since the pictures more closely align with the size of those screens. It works fine in portrait mode as well, but there is a fair bit of filler (black) space above and below the pictures in portrait mode. If you get to where you try out pictures that were taken independently and placed on your mobile device, and those pictures were taken in portrait mode, then working with them in portrait mode would be the better orientation.

First of all, thank you for your thoughtful inquiry.

For those who may not yet have had the opportunity to try the app out, here is a brief
summary of its features and operation:
- The app presents various images, generally photographs, on the mobile device screen.
As the user places their finger on the screen and moves it about, the app responds by
providing musical tones that correspond to the colors under the user's finger.
- There is an extensive tutorial section that explains the operation of the app, and
provides practice in recognizing the musical tones that are generated, and how to
relate them to the colors on screen.
- There is a section of over 150 sample images (photographs) which provide further
opportunities for the user to explore and learn about the technology. Images in this
section cover a wide variety of subjects, with examples such as:
- Nature: sunsets, rainbows, flowers, fall foliage
- Transportation: cars, trucks, aircraft
- Cityscapes and landmarks: New York, Chicago, Washington Monument, Golden Gate bridge
- Iconic landscapes: Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, other national parks
- Animals: Zebra, Giraffe, Eagles
- Astronomy: Sun, Moon, planets, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies
- There is a feature that allows users to load their own photographs that are already on
their mobile device and explore them in the same fashion.
- Besides simply being able to determine the colors within a photograph, users can also
derive hints of textures of objects on screen, as well as the ability to detect edges
of objects and trace their shapes.

It would be presumptuous of me to assert that the technology provides certain defined
benefits, so I will instead list the goals and aspirations that I had when developing it:
- Provide a mechanism by which BVI users can explore the incredibly rich tapestries of
form and color in images of all types.
- Provide a mechanism by which BVI users can get a real sense of the aesthetic beauty of
the visual world.
- Provide a mechanism by which BVI users can satisfy their curiosity about the shape and
colors of objects they hear about in everyday life, and do so at their leisure by
carefully exploring images of the objects.
- Provide a platform that could be the basis for later educational or hobbyist pursuits,
such as:
- Astronomy app that illustrates and discusses all things extraterrestrial
- Math app that illustrates basic and advanced concepts in geometry, algebra, and
trigonometry
- Flowers app that provides a nearly encyclopedic coverage of all manner of flowers
- National Parks app that showcases the wonders of the U.S. National Park system
- Any number of similar subject-matter apps that users may find interesting and useful

It is probably worth noting that this app is NOT intended to replace the many incredibly
useful apps in existence that allow BVI users to get the names of objects in their photos,
provide navigational assistance, or read text that is in photos. Rather than being an app
that has utility for the BVI user on the go, this app is more appropriate for exploration
in the quiet comfort of ones dwelling.

If it is reasonable to characterize the paradigm of the panoply of existing accessibility
apps, and indeed VoiceOver itself, as one in which technology provides spoken descriptions
of the content of images, the bviTouch technology exploits a completely different paradigm,
one in which the user directly interacts with the image and explores its content.

Whether this new paradigm will be found to have value by BVI users is a verdict that awaits.

Again, thanks for the question, and the opportunity to answer.

- Jim Misti