TactileView Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Thinkable products for visually impaired people

Next section Next section icon

3.05 Scroll wheel and key combinations

A number of software features are easily accessible by using the scroll wheel when operating the software with your mouse. The description below gives an overview of the different operations using the scroll wheel for better efficiency when drawing.

Operation	Shortcut
Pan vertically through design	Scroll up/down
Zoom in	Ctrl + scroll up
Zoom out	Ctrl + scroll down
Rotate selected object 5 degrees	Shift + scroll up/down
Rotate selected object 1 degree	Shift + alt + scroll up/down
Increase/decrease line thickness	Shift + scroll up/down
Increase dot size	Shift + scroll up/down

Pan vertically through the design (Scroll up/down)

When the mouse is in the design area, scrolling up or down with the mouse wheel (no keys pressed) will allow you to move vertically through the design.

Zooming in/out (Ctrl + scroll up/down)

To view a particular part of the design in more detail, you can zoom in by using Ctrl + scroll up. Ctrl + scroll down will zoom out in order to view a larger section of the design.

Rotation of objects (Shift + scroll, Shift + Ctrl + scroll)

Almost all objects (including textlabels) can be rotated any number of degrees. The angle for the rotation can be set in an edit field by clicking ‘Rotation’ in the object’s toolbar. For easy access, a selected object can be rotated in steps of 5 degrees by using Shift + scroll wheel up/down. For more accuracy, Ctrl + shift + scroll up/down will rotate the object in steps of 1 degree.

Increase/decrease of line thickness or dot size (Shift + scroll up/down)

The value for the line thickness, the eraser width or the size of the blue dots can be set by entering a value in the respective dialogs. While drawing, the size can be easily adjusted Shift + scroll wheel.

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section Next section icon

6.03 Select area; editing parts of the design

The drawing tool ‘Select area’ enables you to manipulate a section of the design. After activating the tool, two types of functions become available: ‘Select Rectangle’ (default) and ‘Insert or remove space’. The rectangular selection allows you to make localized adjustments to the contents of your design. Inserting or removing horizontal/vertical space is used to locally adjust the size of the drawing canvas.

Select rectangle – define the selection

After choosing ‘Select area’ from the drawing tools icon bar or Drawing tools menu, move the mouse into the drawing area and click to set the first position of the first corner. Next, move the cursor and click a second time to complete the selection. Alternatively, you can also click and hold for the first position, then move the cursor and release at the second position.

A dotted rectangle will indicate which area is selected. This selection can be adjusted by dragging the purple markers around the selection. To reposition the selection, move the cursor over the rectangle, then click and hold to drag the selection to another position.

Alternatively, you can select ‘Size and position’ from the properties toolbar or context menu to adjust the selection.

Figure 1. Selecting an area in the design.

Select area icon:
Select rectangle icon:

Icons around the selection for easy access

A number of small icons along the edges of the selection give quick access to a few functions for editing the selected area.

Mirroring horizontally flips the selected image left to right, like turning a page in a book. Mirroring vertically flips the image upside down, like turning a page in a wall calendar.

Rotation and mirroring the area can be performed by simply clicking on the corresponding icons. The large red is used to move the selected area of the bitmap, whereas the blue marker allows you to move all objects and text labels that are (partially) within the selection.

The right vertical toolbar will show the full list of options for manipulating the selected section of the design.

Rotate selection icons: Icons for rotating the selected area

Mirror selection icons: Icons for mirroring selected area

Red marker for moving the bitmap:
Red marker for moving the selected part of the bitmap
Blue marker for moving objects:
Blue marker for moving selected objects

Manipulate bitmap: crop, make selection white or fuse objects

To isolate the contents of the selected area from the rest of the design, select ‘Crop Area’. Only the content will remain as the design, as the area outside the selection will be removed.

Select ‘Paint Area White’ to fill the selected part of the bitmap with white. Any objects in the selection will not be affected and have to be fused first to make them white. You can either fuse all objects within the selection by selecting ‘Fuse the selected objects with the bitmap’, or fuse objects individually by selecting and then fusing them.

Crop area icon:

Paint area white icon:

Edit selected area as figure (move and resize)

The selected area of the bitmap can be resized and moved by choosing ‘Convert to figure’. The purple markers around this figure can be used to resize the selection.

You can also choose ‘Save as figure (file)’ to save the figure to reuse it in other designs.

Save as figure (file) icon:

Convert to figure icon:

Apply filters

The selected content can be processed using the range of filters. These have the same functionality as the list of filters in the Filters menu, but will only be applied to the selection instead of the entire design.

Figure 2. Local adjustments by applying a filter to the selected area.

Adding/removing a vertical or horizontal area

The function ‘Selected strips’ can be used to remove the selected vertical or horizontal area, or to add this amount of white space to the design. To use this tool, activate ‘Select area’, then ‘Insert or remove space’.

A crosshair cursor will appear when you move the mouse to the drawing area. By clicking once, the first outline of the selection is positioned, as indicated by the dotted green lines. Next, move the mouse horizontally or vertically and click a second time to complete the selection of the strip. Once again, you can also click and drag, then release at the second position to define the selection.

The width of the horizontal or vertical selection can be adjusted by dragging the purple marker on the green dotted lines.

A preview when hovering over the green plus sign will display the addition, whereas hovering over the red minus sign shows the design with the deleted area. Simply clicking on either sign will confirm the action.

Add or remove horizontal or vertical area

Figure 3. Add or remove a horizontal or vertical area in the design.

Insert or remove space icon:

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section Next section icon

3.06 Transparency and object stacking

All blue objects with the exception of lines have two components: the outline (e.g. the tree sides of a triangle) and the object’s surface (the area in between those three lines). The object’s surface can be given a combination of different properties, such as textures and transparency.

The transparency comes into play when two or more objects are (partly) overlapping. When the object is transparent, all blue parts of the objects ‘below’ it will be visible and included on the print. When the object is not transparent, (parts of) the object below will be covered.

Select ‘Change to cover underlying image (is now transparent)’ from the properties toolbar or context menu to make the object non-transparent. Vice versa, select ‘Change to make the underlying image visible (is now not transparent)’ to make the object transparent.

The influence of transparency of objects

Figure 1. The circle on the left is transparent, revealing the square below; the circle on the right is non-transparent and covers the square.

‘Make object transparent’ icon:
‘Make object non-transparent’ icon:

Control overlap with Object Stacking
By default, the order in which the objects are placed in the design determines the stacking order, i.e. which object is ‘on top’ and will overlap ‘lower’ object(s). Objects that were placed later will be on top of earlier placed objects.

You can easily get an overview of the stacking order of the objects in your design by selecting ‘Screen elements’ from the second horizontal toolbar, then choosing ‘Show object stacking’. When this is activated, the object order is indicated with green numbers for transparent objects and orange numbers for non-transparent objects. The lowest numbers will be on top, e.g. object 1 will cover object 3 when it is not transparent.

If you want to reverse the object order, select the object that you wish to move below or on top of another object, then select ‘To back’ or ‘To front’ to move it below or on top of the other object(s) respectively.

Orange and green numbers show the stacking order of the objects

Figure 2. The green and orange numbers show the stacking order of the circles and squares.

‘Screen elements’ icon:
‘Show object stacking’ icon:
‘To front’ icon:
‘To back’ icon:

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

5.08 Design mode: dot view/line view

The graphic capabilities for tactile images differ for each individual production medium. Swellpaper has different properties than an embossed image, and each braille printer will differ in dot shape and placement.

‘Design mode: dot view’ in the second horizontal toolbar is used to display the specific graphic properties of the selected output medium. With dot view selected, the dots are continuously repositioned to match the printed outputs as you add to your design. This functions like a ‘live print preview’ in which you can directly edit your design and see the final output at the same time.

If you want to see the line drawing that the embossed image is based on or that is printed on swellpaper, simply go back to ‘Design mode: line view’.

Figure 1. The difference between displaying a design in line view (left) and dot view (right).

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

5.01 Layout tools

In TactileView, several tools are available to facilitate a precise design process and cope with regulations and conventions that specify the layout of a tactile diagram.

Right-up marker
Once the design is printed and in the hands of the reader, the right-up marker is tactile marker in the top right corner. This right-up marker helps to find the correct orientation of the diagram without having to explore the tactile diagram itself. This way you can easily find out if the design should be read in a portrait or landscape orientation.

When the marker is presented in blue on screen, it will be printed. By clicking on the red marker in the top right corner of the screen, the right-up marker can be selected or unselected. Alternatively, you can select ‘Draw right-up marker’ from the design toolbar (right vertical toolbar when nothing is selected) or the design context menu.

Figure 1. The right-up marker as shown on screen.

‘Draw right-up marker’ icon:

Alignment grids

TactileView provides two alignment grids that make it easier to get the right layout in your document. The braille grid allows you to align text labels in a fixed grid throughout the design, whereas the measurements grid is used to visualise the dimensions in your document to align objects. The grids are shown in green on screen and will not be printed. You can enable or disable these grids in the second vertical toolbar. This option can also be found in the View menu.

See: Alignment grids – braille grid and measurements grid.

Figure 2. A section of the measurements grid (left) and measurements grid.

‘Screen elements’ icon:
‘Show grid’ icon:

Dot view / line view mode
The graphic capabilities for tactile images differ for each individual production medium. Use the ‘Design mode: dot view/line view’ to control the layout for the different print outputs.

See: Design mode: dot view/line view.

Text label alignment
For accurate placement of texts in your tactile graphics, text labels can be aligned horizontally or vertically with other labels in the design. You can select ‘Switch text label alignment on/off’ from the properties toolbar of a selected text label, or when placing a new label in the design.

As long as the alignment function is on, green ‘magnetic’ dotted lines will appear when moving a text label close to the horizontal or vertical position of another label in the design. The text label on which the moved label will be aligned will be highlighted. When you let go at this position, the moved label will automatically ‘snap’ to this alignment. The same applies to placing a new text label in your design. Please note that aligned text labels are not ‘connected’ but can still be moved and edited separately.

Figure 3. Text label alignment with green dotted lines.

Centre object or text label
All objects in the toolbar tool have a ‘Centre’ option in their properties toolbar. With this option the object will move to the centre position of the paper. When the paper width is changed, the object will no longer be centred.

See: Editing object properties.

‘Centre’ icon:

Only move horizontally, vertically or diagonally
By holding the Shift key and dragging a selected object or textlabel, the movement will only be in a perfectly horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction. This can also be switched on or off permanently by selecting ‘Restrict to horizontal, vertical and diagonal movement’ from the properties toolbar or context menu of the object or label.

See: Editing object properties.

‘Restrict to horizontal, vertical or diagonal movement’ icon:

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

5.02 Portrait or landscape design

For tactile graphics, the image size has a big influence on tactile usability. TactileView provides several options to control both design and paper size for optimal tactile quality.

Multiple sheets of paper
The maximum size of paper that printers generally can handle is A4, A3, US Letter or Tabloid. However, diagrams can be larger than the maximum paper size when an image needs to be enlarged to retain the level of detail in the original image. Multiple sheets can be placed in rows and or columns to allow for tactile diagrams of any large size. The red paper border will indicate the size of the design and the number of sheets.

See also: Paper size vs. design size.

Amount of details in a tactile diagram
On one hand, the level of detail that can be presented in a tactile graphic is limited due the discriminatory capabilities of the fingertips. On the other hand, the relatively large size of braille dots and the minimal required distance in between dots also limit how much detail can be included.

The larger the design therefore, the more detail can be retained when printed with an embosser. This will help to control the complexity of the designs.

Figure 1. This image shows the shape of a fern branch, but might not contain sufficient tactile detail in the leaves. A separate image could be used to display leaf details.

Images as large as possible
Although there is a limitation to the size of an image, it is best practice to use as much of the paper as possible. Matching the design orientation to the dimensions of the tactile graphic (i.e. using landscape for wide images and portrait for higher ones) allows for optimal positioning on the paper. Rotating from landscape to portrait or vice versa may give a 30% larger image, which greatly improves the tactile usability.

Figure 2. By choosing the right orientation, the image can be shown larger, maintaining more detail.

When changing the design orientation, the image will not be scaled. This way, the size and position of the elements in your design will not change and details will not be lost. However, the design will automatically be extended with extra white space or trimmed of excess empty white space in order to fit the new paper orientation.

It is best to think about the optimal size of the tactile diagram before starting the design: a higher level of detail will require a larger design size. Adjustments in size can always be made later by scaling the design with the purple markers around the edge. However, text labels have a fixed size. By scaling the image they might overlap the image or may end up too far from the elements in the drawing that they refer to.

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

3.03 Colours on screen

General colour use in TactileView

Green

The colour green is used as a colour for information. Everything you see in this colour is NOT printed on the design. Examples are: the font ‘beneath’ the braille dots of the textlabels, the alignment lines for the text labels, the grid for aligning object in the drawing area, the letters at the angles for the triangle.

Blue

Objects created with one of the drawing tools (square, line, circle, dot, etc.) are presented in blue. Variations of blue are used to indicated the selected dot height (for embossers that support varying dot heights). A lighter blue colour indicates a lower dot height.

Black

Lines that are created with the drawing tool ‘Retouching: Adding lines’, are drawn in black. This indicates that the line is part of the underlying bitmap in the design. The bitmap consists of individual pixels that can be erased by choosing ‘Retouching: Erase’.

Any colours present in images inserted from file or from the internet will be converted to braille dots. These images should be processed using the filters and be converted to black/white in order to print them in braille lines.

Purple

Markers are placed on or around a selected object. These markers can be used to reposition or resize the object, or change its proportions. Markers with a different function will have a different colour instead of purple.

Red

A red border is surrounding the drawing area, reflecting the printable area of a sheet of paper in the selected paper size. When the designs exceeds this initial area, the red borders will signify that multiple sheets of paper will be printed that together will contain the design.

Special cases

Text labels

A rounded marker precedes each text label to signify the type of input used for the specific label.

Green is used for text labels entered with the regular computer keyboard;

Orange for those that were created with Perkins style input;

Grey/blue for mathematical textlabels, created with the MathType equation editor.

Formulas in graphs

When multiple formulas are used in a graph, each formula in a graph will have its own colour (red, green, blue and yellow) to easily distinguish between them. These different colours are only used for display on the screen and will not lead to differences on a print.

Figure 1. Colours are used on screen to distinguish between different formulas.

Braille tables
In a single document, multiple braille tables can be used to accommodate for language variations. In the design toolbar (right vertical toolbar when nothing is selected), click ‘Show used braille tables’ to see an overview of the different braille tables in the design. Colours are used in the legend and design to distinguish the different braille tables.

Figure 2. The colours in the legend and text labels signify the used braille tables.

Audio styles

Objects with audiostyles are presented with a light red/pink fill.

Figure 3. The light red colour signifies that the circle contains an audio style.

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

12.05 Printing on swellpaper (microcapsule paper)

Swellpaper (also called microcapsule, puff or fuser paper) is a heat sensitive paper and contains chemical ingredients that swell up to form a raised texture. Whereas braille embossers will use lines made up of individual braille dots, designs printed on swellpaper have more fluid, continuous lines that retain more detail.
Once the design has been printed with an inkjet printer, the paper has to be heated in a special oven in order to produce the braille texts and tactile images. In this process, any areas on the paper with black ink will swell to form the relief.
Laser printers are not recommended for swellpaper as the high-temperature environment can cause the paper to swell inside the printer, resulting in a serious paper jam.

Optimise braille dot diameter
Swell-paper produced by various companies (such as Tangible Magic Paper, ZyTex, Flexi-Paper and Matsumoto) are all suitable for tactile graphics. Each brand has slightly different properties in terms of the required temperature and duration of heating. It takes some experience to find the optimal settings for the particular paper that you are using, so make sure do some thorough tests to find out which combination of temperature and heating time works best.
Depending on the oven temperature, the braille dots might raise either too much or not sufficiently, making them no longer distinguishable as individual braille dots. To compensate for this effect, the diameter of the dots can be adjusted by choosing ‘Text label presentation: on print’ from the Settings menu and increasing or decreasing the size of braille dots.

Printing text combining visual font with braille
The normal font (visual characters) of braille labels can be printed in a lighter colour. To avoid the text being raised when heated in the oven, make sure to select a colour other than black in ‘Text label presentation: on print’ as the ‘Text colour on print’. For example, a green or blue works well for visual readability.

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

1.04 Installing updates and beta versions

A new version of the TactileView software is released periodically. You will automatically be notified by email when a new release is available for download. The Release notes section will give you an overview of the new software features and bug fixes that are included in each of the public release versions.

You can simply launch the downloaded software installer to update your TactileView installation (you do not need to uninstall the previously installed version). The same applies to development versions that are not publicly available.

When you launch TactileView after installation, you will be asked to verify your contact details. The configuration wizard will then open. We recommend you to have a look at the steps in the wizard, as some settings might have been changed or added.

Previous section

Return to TactileView manual overview

Next section

1.03 Installing software

To install the software after downloading, launch the TactileView installer from the USB drive or download folder. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation. In the last dialog, choose ‘Finish’, then launch the software from the Windows Start menu.

Show installation steps

Step 1: Software details. Click ‘Next’ to proceed.

Step 2: Installation options. Select the folder in which TactileView will be installed if necessary and click ‘Install’ to proceed.

Step 3: TactileView installation. This will be completed automatically.

Step 4: Installation has finished. Click ‘Finish’ to close the installer.

First launch

During the first launch you will be asked to select your user language. Select your language from the list, then click ‘OK’ to confirm. Please keep in mind that a number of these user languages have been automatically translated and might not be completely correct.

Show language selection

Set user language when launching TactileView for the first time.

Parallel installations

Two TactileView versions from the software generations below and over 2.5 can be installed parallelly on one computer. This way, you can try out a brand new version in free demonstration mode before deciding to upgrade your SPC – but without having to uninstall the version you have currently been working with.

Older posts

Newer posts

Previous Page1 … Page5 Page6 Page7 … Page9 Next