Although many people are considered blind or low vision (BLV), accurate Braille signage can be costly. This problem often results in poor upkeep of Braille signage as it slowly breaks or wears down. Some have attempted to solve this issue by 3D printing their own Braille signage, but often without consideration for the proper grammatical structure or sizing of Braille. Hence, I created an add-on for Blender, a popular 3D modeling software, that would automate Braille generation in a mindful manner of grammar and sizing. I also made an automated tool for generating tactile models to help in my own STEM outreach!
This is my first attempt at creating a Blender add-on, so please feel free to point out bugs, errors, or suggestions as they come up!
A video detailing how to use these packages will be published on Slightly Professional soon!
BlenderBraille's first package, Braille Generator, uses pybrl to convert user-given text into the corresponding Braille text. Braille Generator extracts the dot locations produced by this package and produces hemispheres at each corresponding location. An external Python package is required for translation since contracted (Grade 2) Braille uses shorthands to represent common words or phrases. While pybrl is reasonably accurate, it is good to check with a professional translator or someone who can read contracted Braille. All dot size parameters are defaulted to those recommended by the Braille Authority of North America, with the ability to adjust sizing slightly. However, users cannot change sizing parameters outside the allowed ranges provided by the Braille Authority of North America. If one plans on 3D printing their Braille, please ensure that you change the scene settings using the "Set Scene Units to MM" button under the Braille Generator tab.
NOTE: Users must ensure that they install pybrl in a way that Blender can access. Installation is separate from the Braille Generator.
In the world of STEM outreach, some programs have created tools called tactile models to aid BLV individuals. Typically, tactile models represent flat planes with raised sections to communicate some visual feature (i.e., height, color, brightness, etc.), although they can take on many other forms. This Tactile Model Generator is focused on this simple case where an image is used to displace a flat surface. A demonstration of one of these models is shown below to demonstrate how this package works.
For the best results, the images fed into the Tactile Model Generator should be greyscale (where the whitest pixels represent the highest heights). This add-on can process RGBA images by converting them into greyscale by averaging the RGB values. The resulting model may exhibit odd artifacts due to this conversion process.