A video based interface to textual information for the visually impaired

We describe the development of an interface to textual information for the visually impaired that uses video, image processing, optical-character-recognition (OCR) and text-to-speech (TTS). The video provides a sequence of low resolution images in which text must be detected, rectified and converted into high resolution rectangular blocks that are capable of being analyzed via off-the-shelf OCR. To achieve this, various problems related to feature detection, mosaicing, auto-focus, zoom, and systems integration were solved in the development of the system.