Article

Panoramik: Finding and Locating Objects via Panoramic Camera Techniques

One of the areas that poses a challenge for individuals with significantly low sight and blindness is the dynamic nature of their work surroundings. Visually impaired individuals tend to prefer a very well organized and static environment because it allows them to know exactly where everything is at any given time. However, in a dynamic work environment, there are fellow co-workers, colleagues, and customers that may move or misplace key items and objects that visually impaired individuals may need in order to carry out their job. Because of these issues, we propose to build an affordable camera-based system to find and track key objects for visually impaired individuals. Our solution is to use a mobile panoramic imaging system that joins 360-degree surveillance with user-defined panoramic photos to create a self-aware environment. By tracking objects and item placement, the system will be able to assist visually impaired individuals locate objects using audio cues. For the software component, a phone application is developed that is Android friendly for users. The application consists of a classifier algorithm to locate objects and save the memory of these objects. The hardware component utilizes a 360 omnidirectional camera (or equivalent) and a smartphone.

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