Braille output device and Braille output method

Abstract

To provide a braille output device and a braille output method that allow anyone to easily create Braille in an expression that can be recognized by a visually impaired person.SOLUTION: A reception control unit 201 receives a black letter document input from a user. A change control unit 202 changes characters in the input black letter document into unit characters that can be converted into Braille. Based on a conversion table associating special characters for black letters and special characters for Braille with each other, a conversion control unit 203 searches for target characters corresponding to the special characters for black letters in the conversion table in characters in the black letter document including the changed unit characters, and converts the target characters into the special characters for Braille associated with the special characters for black letters. A Braille control unit 204 converts the characters in the black letter document including the special characters for Braille obtained through the conversion into Braille. An output control unit 205 outputs the Braille obtained through the conversion to an output medium.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a Braille output device and a Braille output method. [Background technology]

[0002] Conventionally, there has been a known method of arranging Braille characters, which can be recognized by visually impaired people, and ink characters, which can be seen by sighted people without visual impairments, side by side. However, due to the need to secure space for arrangement, a method has been proposed in which Braille characters are output on top of ink characters.

[0003] For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-53312 (Patent Document 1) discloses a character information processing method that displays sample images of multiple options on a display screen when selecting from multiple options for the layout of ink characters and Braille to be printed and embossed on a common processing sheet. In this method, the multiple options include Braille and ink character side-by-side arrangement, in which ink characters and Braille are arranged side-by-side, and Braille and ink character overlap arrangement, in which at least a portion of the characters are arranged overlapping. This allows for easy and efficient operation to print ink characters and emboss Braille in a desired layout without having to refer to an instruction manual or the like.

[0004] Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2020-16811 (Patent Document 2) discloses a character output device that includes a storage unit that stores font data composed of an ink character layer and a Braille layer, an ink character printing unit that prints ink characters on an output target medium based on the ink character layer, and a Braille output unit that outputs Braille on the medium on which the ink characters are printed based on the Braille layer. In this character output device, the characters included in the font data are configured so that the dots that make up the Braille characters all overlap the line portions that make up the ink characters, and when outputting Braille on the medium on which ink characters are printed, the Braille output unit aligns the dots that make up the Braille characters so that they all overlap the line portions that make up the ink characters. This ensures that even when Braille characters are output superimposed on ink characters, the Braille characters do not interfere with the reading of the ink characters. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0005] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-53312 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2020-16811 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0006] Here, the Braille expressions that visually impaired people can recognize may differ from the print expressions that sighted people can recognize. For example, the expression "renshu" can be recognized by sighted people, but not by visually impaired people. Therefore, the expression "renshu" must be converted to the expression "renshu (long note)," which can be recognized by visually impaired people. In this way, there is a discrepancy between the print expressions that sighted people can recognize and the Braille expressions that visually impaired people can recognize.

[0007] When creating Braille for visually impaired people for signs and other displays installed in public institutions, sighted people typically convert the content written in ink into Braille. However, due to the discrepancy in expression described above, a specialist must first convert the content written in ink into Braille before creating the Braille. This poses the problem of time-consuming conversion of the content written in ink into Braille, and is prone to conversion errors. The above-mentioned Patent Documents 1 and 2 do not address these issues.

[0008] Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and aims to provide a Braille output device and a Braille output method that allow anyone to easily create Braille that can be recognized by visually impaired people. [Means for solving the problem]

[0009] A Braille output device according to the present invention includes a reception control unit, a change control unit, a conversion control unit, a Braille control unit, and an output control unit. The reception control unit accepts an ink-character document input by a user. The change control unit changes each character of the input ink-character document into a unit character that can be converted into Braille. The conversion control unit searches for a target character in the ink-character document containing the changed unit character based on a conversion table that associates ink-character-specific characters with Braille-specific characters, and converts the target character into a Braille character associated with the ink-character-specific character. The Braille control unit converts each character of the ink-character document containing the converted Braille-specific characters into Braille. The output control unit outputs the converted Braille to an output medium.

[0010] The Braille output method according to the present invention includes a reception control step, a change control step, a conversion control step, a Braille control step, and an output control step. Each step of the Braille output method corresponds to a corresponding part of the Braille output device. [Effects of the Invention]

[0011] According to the present invention, anyone can easily create Braille that can be recognized by visually impaired people. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0012] [Figure 1] 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a Braille output device according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 2] 1 is a functional block diagram of a Braille output device according to a first embodiment of the present invention; [Figure 3] 1 is a flowchart showing a procedure for executing a Braille output method according to a first embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 4] 4A is a diagram showing an example of a document written in ink, and FIG. 4B is a diagram showing an example of a document written in ink in which predetermined characters have been converted into unit characters. [Figure 5]FIG. 5A shows an example of an ink-character document in which ink-only characters have been converted into Braille-only characters, and FIG. 5B shows an example of a Braille document converted from an ink-character document. [Figure 6] 1A and 1B show examples of documents in various forms of Braille; DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0013] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings to help understand the present invention. Note that the following embodiment is an example of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the technical scope of the present invention.

[0014] A Braille output device 1 according to the present invention includes a terminal device 10 for converting ink characters into Braille, as shown in Fig. 1. The terminal device 10 includes a display unit that displays a screen, a reception unit (input unit) that receives input of predetermined instructions by user operation, a storage unit that stores data, a control unit that controls each unit, and an output unit that outputs data.

[0015] Examples of the terminal device 10 include a desktop terminal device, a tablet terminal device, a portable notebook computer, a mobile terminal device with a touch panel (smartphone), etc. There are no particular limitations as long as the device can convert ink characters into Braille.

[0016] When the output unit outputs Braille, for example, a printing device dedicated to Braille, such as a UV printer (a printer using UV-curable ink that hardens when exposed to UV rays), can be connected to the terminal device 10, and UV printing of Braille (printing using UV-curable ink that hardens when exposed to UV rays) can be performed based on the data. There are no particular limitations on the form in which the Braille can be output, and in addition to UV printing, silk screen printing and embossed printing can be used. Examples of output media on which Braille can be output include paper, sheets, tape, etc., and types of output media include signs, guide boards, books, tape, tickets, etc.

[0017] The terminal device 10 has built-in CPU, ROM, RAM, HDD, SSD, etc. (not shown), and the CPU uses, for example, RAM as a work area to execute programs stored in the ROM, HDD, SSD, etc. Furthermore, each of the units described below is realized by the CPU executing a program.

[0018] Next, the configuration and execution procedure according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to Figures 2 and 3. First, a user uses the terminal device 10 to create a Braille document to be output to an output medium as an ink-character document (for example, "Hello everyone. Please move to the music practice room.") and inputs it into the terminal device 10. The reception control unit 201 of the terminal device 10 then receives the ink-character document input by the user (Figure 3: S101).

[0019] Here, the reception control unit 201 displays the received ink-character document on the display unit. This allows the user to confirm that the ink-character document is correct. If there is an error in the ink-character document, the user can simply operate the terminal device 10 to correct the ink-character document.

[0020] Once the ink-character document is finalized, the user inputs an output instruction to output the ink-character document as Braille to the terminal device 10. Then, the change control unit 202 of the terminal device 10 first changes each character of the input ink-character document into a unit character that can be converted into Braille (Figure S102).

[0021] Here, the change control unit 202 may perform any change in any manner. For example, as shown in FIG. 4A , if a print-character document reads, "Hello, everyone. Moving to the music practice room." and the document contains kanji characters, and the kanji characters cannot be converted to braille, the kanji characters must be converted to hiragana. In this case, the change control unit 202 changes the kanji characters "music practice room" to the hiragana characters "ongakurenshuushitsu" and the kanji characters "movement" to the hiragana characters "ido." Hiragana characters are unit characters that can be converted to braille. This allows the input print-character document to be converted to unit characters that can be converted to braille, facilitating the subsequent braille conversion. Meanwhile, because the user can input a print-character document containing kanji characters, the user does not need to consider whether the characters can be converted to braille while inputting the print-character document, and the user can input the print-character document smoothly.

[0022] In addition, in Figure 4A, a document written in ink based on hiragana is assumed, but this does not need to be limited to this.For example, a document written in ink based on katakana may be assumed, or a document written in ink based on the alphabet may be assumed.

[0023] Now, when the change control unit 202 completes the change, the conversion control unit 203 of the terminal device 10 searches for a target character that corresponds to the ink-only character in the conversion table among the characters in the ink-only document containing the changed unit character, based on a conversion table that associates ink-only characters with braille-only characters, and converts the target character into a braille-only character associated with the ink-only character in the conversion table (Figure S103).

[0024] Here, there is no particular limitation on the conversion method of the conversion control unit 203. For example, the conversion control unit 203 first refers to a conversion table 400 stored in advance in a predetermined storage unit. As shown in Fig. 4B, the conversion table 400 stores ink-character-specific characters 401 and braille-specific characters 402 in association with each other. This conversion table 400 is a table for converting ink-character expressions into braille expressions.

[0025] For example, the print character "konnichiwa" is correct for sighted people, but not for the visually impaired, and "konnichiwa" is the correct Braille character. Also, the print character "shuu" is correct for sighted people, but not for the visually impaired, and "shuu (long vowel)" is the correct Braille character. The print character "dou" is correct for sighted people, but not for the visually impaired, and "dou (long vowel)" is the correct Braille character. Furthermore, the print character "he" for heading to the countryside is correct for sighted people, but not for the visually impaired, and "e" is the correct Braille character. The print character "," is correct for sighted people, but for the visually impaired, one "," (comma) and one "_" (space) are needed, and the correct Braille character is "," (comma) _ (space). Furthermore, while the representation of "." in print is acceptable for sighted people, two ". (period)" and two "_" (spaces) are necessary for visually impaired people, and so ". (period) __ (two spaces)" is the correct representation in Braille. In FIG. 4B, Braille-specific characters 402 are displayed as "shu long note," "do long note," "comma _," and "period __" for Braille conversion, but these have the same meaning as "shu (long note)," "do (long note)," ", (comma) _ (space)," and ". (period) __ (two spaces)." Furthermore, print-specific characters 401 and Braille-specific characters 402 in conversion table 400 shown in FIG. 4B are merely examples.

[0026] As described above, since there is a discrepancy between the representation of ink characters and the representation of Braille characters, in the present invention, this discrepancy is stored in advance as a conversion table 400, and by using this conversion table 400, it is possible to search for ink character expressions (characters exclusive to ink characters 401) that are difficult for visually impaired people to understand among the ink character expressions casually entered by sighted people.

[0027] When the conversion control unit 203 refers to the conversion table 400, it compares the characters of the changed ink-character document with the ink-character-specific characters 401 in the conversion table 400, and searches for target characters from the ink-character document that correspond to the ink-character-specific characters 401. Here, as shown in Fig. 5A, among the characters of the ink-character document, ",", "konnichiwa," ".", "shu," "he," "do," and "." are searched for as target characters.

[0028] Then, when the conversion control unit 203 completes the search, it converts the searched target character into a Braille character 402 associated with the print-character character 401. Here, as shown in FIG. 5A , the target character "," is converted into ", (comma) __", "konnichiwa" is converted into "konnichiwa", "." is converted into ". (period) __", "shu" is converted into "shuu (long note)", "he" is converted into "e", and "do" is converted into "dou (long note)". In this way, by using the conversion table 400, it is possible to convert a print-character representation input by a sighted person into a Braille representation that can be understood by a visually impaired person.

[0029] Now, when the conversion control unit 203 completes the conversion, the Braille control unit 204 of the terminal device 10 then converts each character of the ink-character document, including the converted Braille-specific characters 402, into Braille (Fig. S104).

[0030] Here, the method of conversion performed by the Braille control unit 204 is not particularly limited. For example, the Braille control unit 204 refers to a database associating ink characters with Braille, and converts each character of the ink character document, including Braille-specific characters 402, into Braille, as shown in FIG. 5B . Here, because all characters of the ink character document have already been converted into characters that can be converted into Braille, the subsequent conversion to Braille can proceed smoothly. Furthermore, even if a user who is unaware of the difference between ink character and Braille representations creates an ink character document, the difference can be used as conversion table 400 to automatically convert the document into one that can be recognized by visually impaired persons, so any user can easily create Braille representations that can be recognized by visually impaired persons.

[0031] Now, when the Braille control unit 204 completes the conversion, finally, the output control unit 205 of the terminal device 10 outputs the converted Braille to an output medium (Fig. S105).

[0032] Here, there are no particular limitations on the output method of the output control unit 205. For example, as shown in Fig. 6, the output control unit 205 may output only Braille to the output medium, or may output ink characters directly below the Braille or directly above the Braille, thereby outputting the ink characters together with the Braille as if they were ruby ​​(furigana). Note that the Braille may be output by, for example, UV printing, and the ink characters may be output by, for example, normal printing, and the Braille output method may be different from the ink character output method.

[0033] In this way, the present invention makes it possible for anyone to easily create Braille that can be recognized by visually impaired people.

[0034] In the embodiment of the present invention, the Braille output device 1 is configured to include each unit, but it may also be configured to store a program that realizes each unit in a storage medium and provide the storage medium. In this configuration, the program is read into the device, and the device realizes each unit. In this case, the program itself read from the storage medium achieves the effects of the present invention. Furthermore, it is also possible to provide a method for storing steps executed by each unit on a hard disk. [Industrial Applicability]

[0035] As described above, the Braille output device and Braille output method of the present invention are useful for output media such as signs, guide boards, books, tapes, tickets, etc. that visually impaired people can check, and are effective as a Braille output device and Braille output method that allows anyone to easily create Braille that can be recognized by visually impaired people. [Explanation of symbols]

[0036] 1. Braille output device 10 Terminal Equipment 201 Reception control unit 202 Change Control Section 203 Conversion control unit 204 Braille control unit 205 Output control section

Claims

1. a reception control unit that receives a document in ink characters input by a user; a conversion control unit that converts each character of the input ink-character document into a unit character that can be converted into Braille; a conversion control unit that searches for a target character that corresponds to the ink-character character in the conversion table among characters in the ink-character document including the changed unit character, based on a conversion table that associates ink-character characters that are correct for sighted people but incorrect for visually impaired people with braille characters that are converted from the ink-character characters into expressions that are correct for visually impaired people, and converts the target character into a braille character associated with the ink-character character; a Braille control unit that converts each character of a print document including the converted Braille-specific characters into Braille; an output control unit that outputs the converted Braille to an output medium; Equipped with the reception control unit receives a document written in ink based on hiragana and including kanji characters; the change control unit changes kanji characters included in the document to hiragana characters, the conversion table associates the Braille character "konnichiwa" with the print-only character "konnichiwa", the Braille character "shuu" with the print-only character "shu", the Braille character "dou" with the print-only character "dou" (long vowel), the Braille character "e" with the print-only character "he", the Braille character "e" with the print-only character "," with the Braille character ", (comma) _ (space)", the Braille character ". (period) _ (double space)" with the print-only character ".", the conversion control unit searches for a target character that is one of the print-character-specific characters in the conversion table among the characters in the ink-character document including the converted hiragana, and converts the searched target character into a braille-specific character associated with the print-character-specific character of the target character; Braille output device.

2. an acceptance control step of accepting a document in ink written form input by a user; a modification control step of modifying each character of the inputted ink-character document into a unit character that can be converted into Braille; a conversion control process for searching for a target character that corresponds to the ink-character character in the conversion table among characters in the ink-character document including the changed unit character, based on a conversion table that associates ink-character characters that are correct for sighted people but incorrect for visually impaired people with braille characters that are converted from the ink-character characters into expressions that are correct for visually impaired people, and converting the target character into a braille character associated with the ink-character character; a Braille control step of converting each character of a print document including the converted Braille-specific characters into Braille; an output control step of outputting the converted Braille onto an output medium; Equipped with the acceptance control step accepts a document written in ink based on hiragana and including kanji characters; The change control step changes kanji characters included in the document to hiragana characters, the conversion table associates the Braille character "konnichiwa" with the print-only character "konnichiwa", the Braille character "shuu" with the print-only character "shu", the Braille character "dou" with the print-only character "dou" (long vowel), the Braille character "e" with the print-only character "he", the Braille character "e" with the print-only character "," with the Braille character ", (comma) _ (space)", the Braille character ". (period) _ (double space)" with the print-only character ".", the conversion control step searches for a target character that is one of the print-character-specific characters in the conversion table among the characters in the ink-character document including the converted hiragana, and converts the searched target character into a braille-specific character associated with the print-character-specific character of the target character; A braille output method comprising:

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