An image processing system dedicated to cortical visual stimulators

Many research teams are currently investigating on visual cortical stimulation in order to allow the blind to recover partial vision. Reliable multielectrode stimulators are needed for a breakthrough in this research field. The next step towards these medical devices is to develop the front-end subsystem that transforms an input image from a camera to stimulator commands. This task is not obvious, since organization and appearance of phosphenes is not uniform and still based on many hypothesis. The paper discusses about these issues, and proposes a front-end subsystem constituted by an image processing system, along with a visualization software that attempts to represent what a blind would perceive when stimulated in accordance to the output of the subsystem. An approach focusing on the edges of images is privileged. The processing system itself is still in development, but its functionality is presented.