Abstract
Navigating urban environments can pose significant challenges for individuals with visual impairments or those who don’t read the local language. A crucial component of such navigation is the ability for a person to discern their location, including the street they are on, potential routes, and specific details of the vicinity such as businesses, roads, and buildings and street addresses. This disclosure describes techniques to facilitate city navigation and the learning of street layouts for visually impaired individuals at a large scale. A navigation aid inspired by the concept of multi-user dungeons (MUDs) is provided to users to enable users to learn to navigate complex environments using textual cues, even in the absence of the ability to view visual maps. Per the techniques, digital map data and image/video data about a location are analyzed to generate audio guidance for the location. A user can review the audio guidance prior to visiting a location, building up a mental map of the location (which is a best practice but currently a manual activity for the visually impaired), allowing them to navigate successfully even when they are unable to view or read visual cues.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Boiarshinov, Dmitrii; Lanning, Gabi; and Guajardo, Jaime, "Providing Audio Guidance for Location Information and Navigation", Technical Disclosure Commons, (June 05, 2024)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/7078