Article

Virtual Mapping Party: Co-Creation of Maps for Visually Impaired People

In this paper, we present a new approach for collecting accessible information for visually impaired people. In the past, accessible maps for people with disabilities have been created by holding events called "mapping parties." During these mapping parties, participants are gathered at target sites to collect information and create maps while physically walking around the site. Due to the labor-intensive nature of this approach, mapping parties alone are not a practical means of creating enough maps to fulfill demand. To increase the efficiency of creating maps, we propose the "virtual mapping party," which enables the participants to contribute to the mapping party from anywhere and at any time. This method uses virtually reconstructed target sites instead of requiring participants to physically visit the sites. Omnidirectional movies and multichannel sound are recorded at the target site and are then used in the virtual reconstruction. Virtual mapping parties have advantages regarding costs, and inclusiveness by allowing visually impaired people to contribute to the mapping activity.

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