From Image to Sound: the Study of Assistive System for the Blind Based on EBCOT

We explore in this study how to provide the real-time processing of the system, which helps the blind "see" the world by auditory pathway, based on Embedded block coding with optimized truncation (EBCOT). The main idea of the EBCOT algorithm is to apply two-tier coding and optimal wavelet base. A special feature of EBCOT algorithm is its ability to code with embedded block and the minimum rate-distortion. This paper demonstrates the properties of EBCOT with several examples and provides extensive comparison to other coding methods, such as SPIHT and EZW. In addition, we compare with the wavelet of db9/7 and db5/3 used in EBCOT. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method is feasible and effective.