- From: David Poehlman <poehlman@clark.net>
- Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 09:45:50 -0400
- To: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
- CC: "meijer@natlab.research.philips.com" <meijer@natlab.research.philips.com>, WAI Interest Group <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
al, You are quite correct, but there is a new lexicon emerging and that is a lexicon of direct image to sound conversion. It will allow for a limitless aray of application matching sounds with images never before heard. Al Gilman wrote: > > At 02:18 PM 5/16/99 +0200, Peter Meijer wrote: > >Technically this should be quite feasible. For instance, > >if an image of the American flag is showing with something > >like Alt="Stars and stripes" in the HTML IMG tag, a blind > >user might at the same time hear a "wav tag" of "wave file > >as alt tag" like (88K file size) > > > > http://www.seeingwithsound.com/extra/usflag.wav > > > >which is the sound generated from and corresponding to the > >usflag.bmp example image that can be downloaded from > > > > Yes, technically, the sound that is attached to the flag icon could be the > sonification of the image. But this would be a triumph of technology over > communication. > > In popular culture this image already has an associated sound. The sound > for the image of a waving stars and stripes is that of Arthur Fiedler > conducting the Boston Pops in Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" on the > Esplanade on the Fourth of July. > > For inclusion of the reading-impaired, it is important to honor the > associations of sight, sound and text that already exist as cliches in the > lexicon of popular culture. > > Al > > > http://www.seeingwithsound.com/extra/usflag.zip > > > >For bandwidth efficiency, for guaranteeing mutual consistency > >between image and sound, and to avoid adding a burden on any > >website developer, one would want this sound rendering done > >automatically on the client computer, based on the original > >image that the IMG tag was referring to. > > > >Linking a browser to a third-party add-on for the image based > >sound rendering would do the job. The browser would only have > >to pass on the image data when the user indicates he/she wants > >to analyze the audible counterpart of an image, perhaps zoom > >into it, hear it in inverse video, hear it line by line, apply > >OCR, or whatever else may help with understanding the content > >of the image through sound. All the necessary ingredients except > >for the browser link are already available. > > > >Best wishes, > > > >Peter Meijer > > > > > >Soundscapes from The vOICe - Seeing with your Ears! > >http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/ > > -- Hands-On Technolog(eye)s Touching The Internet: mailto:poehlman@clark.net Voice: 301.949.7599 ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/poehlman http://poehlman.clark.net Dynamic Solutions Inc. Best of service for your small business network needs! http://www.dnsolutions.com ---sig off---
Received on Monday, 17 May 1999 09:45:08 UTC