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Converting Images Into Sounds for the Blind
prostoalex writes "ACM News Service links to a page on Cornell University Web site that describes a technology developed by researchers to enable blind people to read maps. According to the article, the software package consists of "Java computer code that could translate images into sound, and a rudimentary software program capable of converting pixels of various colors into piano notes of various tones"."
SimTunes and many other works by Toshio Iwai?
A fun drawing program in which tone is determined by pixel color.
Reversing the application so that music was converted to an image would be interesting as well.
Sound might be a very important way to convey images, either an additional one to textures, or replacing the textures completely. It may instantly inform about the kind of a surface. Sound might also convey edges, but then there is a problem of detecting edges: it is usually easy if the map is in a vector form, but in the case of general raster images a good edge detector or even a human that would mark the edges might be needed.
Partly offtopic: a free software to convert images to tactile graphics using edge detection and textures: JTactileGraphics. It does not have sound support currently, but one is being added.
no one's mentioned Metasynth yet?
It's been doing this for a long time. But I guess because it's Mac only many people won't have heard of it.
And yes it sounds much better than Coagula, but no it's not free.
Anyway, some car manufacturer was releazing a new convertible, Renault I think, and had an ad campaign which essentially said that the new car was so fun that even Ray Charles liked it.
So they wanted to film him driving it and singing.
They flew him and the cars and cameras out to Bonneville Salt Flats and discovered something odd.
Ray knew how to drive. He liked driving. Turns out he had an E-Type that he would drive, with his chauffer in the passenger seat giving advice.