Show HN: Img2brl – Tactile Image Viewer for the Web

img2brl.delysid.org

3 points·mlang23··4 comments

I am intrigued by this, but I have no idea what it does.

Is this a tool to convert images into lines for braille in the sense that it is an auto labelling service (similar to how facebook's cnns work?)...or is it converting color squares into sth like offsets for the pins? Does it scale down resolutions?

How does it communicate with the Browser to be available on the braille keyboard?

I have dozens of questions on how this works...I am building a browser on my own and thought about more accessibility features, but I don't have a braille display to test things. My state of knowledge is that those braille displays are still super unaffordable and have just a couple of lines.

I basically converts pixels into pins. It is ment as an absolute last resort. If I (a blind braille display user) have no idea what an image might contain, I can use it to get at least a rough idea. And yes, it can scale, invert and trim edges, like the UI might hint at.

It uses ImageMagick as a workhorse. In fact, you can easily experiment with what it can do with the "convert" utility from ImageMagick. Specifying .ubrl as output file extension will convert to Unicode Braille.

Is this an img to ascii app that happens to use a Braille font rather than a more conventional font?

Sort of, but it is an image to Braille map :-)

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