[misc.handicap] Arkenstone vs Iris

delaunay@irisa.fr (Christophe Delaunay) (02/01/91)

Index Number: 13349

Hi!

Yesterday, I went to a demo about a very impressive text-reader called
"IRIS".  IRIS is a piece of software that helps a blind person to read a
printed document.  They told me it's based on an OCR called "truescan".
The salesman said me that IRIS is a french version of the Arkenstone
Reader but he was not sure.  May anyone confirm this to me?

During the demo, I noticed the software could read text without
learning.  However, I was told in this echo that the Arkenstone reader
needs some learning to have a better recognition.  What about
recognition of mathematical symbols?  May a text reader like the
Arkenstone reader learn mathematical symbols and then, recognize them
easily?  Can the Arkenstone reader be used with a Braille device?  The
salesperson I met yesterday said me that IRIS may only be used with a
speech synthesizer!

Are those product as useful in the real world as they seem to be in
demonstration?

Any comment/expreience/review would be very much appreciated!

Many thanks in advance!

Christophe Delaunay.  e-mail : "delaunay@irisa.irisa.fr" or
"delaunay@irisa.uucp" or "...!uunet!{mcsun,inria}!irisa!delaunay"

swiers@plains.nodak.edu (Mike Swiers ) (02/09/91)

Index Number: 13609

Sorry if this isn't the place for this.  I don't normally read this newgroup.

Anyway,

My mother is legally blind, when she was younger (Jr high, I think it was),
she and two of her brothers got some sort of high fever, and it "burned out"
the optic nerve.  From my understanding the central vision is about shot, and
peripheral is very poor (ie cannot read, drive, watch TV, etc), but she get's
around fine (at least I always thought so.....).  Anyway, she mentioned last
night that a guy was coming in a week or so with some new glasses, magnifiers,
etc, and she was keyed.  She wants to do some sort of job, either from her
house or whatever.  Anyway, what I'm wondering is if anyone out there has
any info/experience with this sort of thing?  Anyone ever heard of a fever
doing this to someone?  Do you know of any computer-related things that
could help her (I have an Apple IIgs, Sun 2/50 and Sun 2/120)?  OCR/vioce
type stuff?  She's never learned braille, and was told at one point in time
not to, and to use her sight as much as possible.  I dunno if these things
get worse with time or what...

Thanks for reading this far,

Mike

delaunay@irisa.fr (Christophe Delaunay) (03/16/91)

Index Number: 14049

     Hi everyone!

     Quite a long time ago, I posted a news article requesting
information about arkenstone and other OCRs.  Before giving a summary of
the e-mail replies I received, I'd like to give MANY THANKS to everyone
who replied my article either by the news or by mail.  Here is a summary
of the replies I received by mail.  I post it over the net because the
messages I received contain useful informations that complete the
follow-up discussion in the news and may be useful for others like me
who want to know more about OCRs before buying one.

First message:
----------
|Hello:

|     I have two Arkenstones.  One at work and the other at home.  The Arkenstone
|Is a product that incorporates a Calera OCR card and is based on Truescan.
|It does not! need to learn in order to read a page.  If Iris is based on
|Truescan they are based on the same hardware and software.  I use a Alva braille
|display at work and a Dolphin speech system at home.  Yes These systems
|work very well.  They don't read everything but read most things.
|Handwritten documents don't work at all.  Multi colored documents are
|harder to read but sometimes work.  Some magazines are hard to read
|at articles are put in segments and scattered through the magazine.

Second Message:
--------

|Hi Christophe!
|/ hpdmd48:misc.handicap / delaunay@irisa.fr (Christophe Delaunay) / 10:49 pm  Jan 31, 1991 /
|>The salesman said me that IRIS is a french version of the Arkenstone
|>Reader but he was not sure.  May anyone confirm this to me?
|
|Don't know.
|(see below)
|
|>During the demo, I noticed the software could read text without
|>learning.  However, I was told in this echo that the Arkenstone reader
|>needs some learning to have a better recognition.  What about
|
|The KPR learns; the Arkenstone (TrueScan) does not.  I read something written
|by the founder of Arkenstone, who was also one of the founders of
|Calera, the maker of TrueScan, that said that TrueScan's process is such
|that it does not need to learn-- it made sense when I read it, but I
|can't remember the explanation.
|(Arkenstone is a nonproffit corporation that has made arrangements with
|Calera to sell TrueScan to blind users at large discounts.  They are
|working on a version of the TrueScan software that is designed for use
|by speech, and I hope braille displays.)
|
|>recognition of mathematical symbols?  May a text reader like the
|>Arkenstone reader learn mathematical symbols and then, recognize them
|
|No, not the ones that aren't part of the ASCII set like < = [] and the
|like.  It won't read characters like radicals, sigmas, and not even
|characters like the <= (< with a line under it) the equivalence symbol,
|or the "for all" (upside down A) symbol.  I find that it tends to make
|mistakes on brackets and braces, possibly turning them into parentheses
|or something else.  I would not expect to read something to get exact
|syntaxes, but it works okay for the text, so you can read something for
|general understanding and then fill in the syntax details via another
|method, like an optacon or a sighted person.
|
|>easily?  Can the Arkenstone reader be used with a Braille device?  The
|>salesperson I met yesterday said me that IRIS may only be used with a
|>speech synthesizer!
|
|If IRIS is in fact a French Arkenstone Reader, then it can-- Arkenstone
|can, at least in concept, the only problem might be conflicts with a
|particular braille system.
|
|>
|>Are those product as useful in the real world as they seem to be in
|>demonstration?
|
|I think that most things look better in demonstrations than they do in
|the "real" world.  It depends what you are going to do with it.  If you
|are going to read a lot of clearly-printed text that doesn't have to be
|scanned perfectly, the Arkenstone will probably be useful to you.  If
|you need to read mainly computer manuals and must have the syntax
|scanned exactly, you will probably be disappointed, although I think the
|Arkenstone will do as well as anything else on the market.  Chip Orange,
|in an article he posted a few months ago thought the KPR (or KPR PC) did
|a little better, but another person I know who has used both-- she had
|experience with both and bought an Arkenstone for personal use-- says
|they are about the same.  She says that one will scan some things better
|and the other some other samples better.  If you can, I suggest you find
|someone with a TrueScan (Arkenstone) and have them scan some of what you
|expect to use it on.  If you would like, I would be happy to do that for
|you, but I know it's probably expensive to send stuff from France to
|the U.S.
|
|I just talked to Arkenstone.  They said that Iris is not Arkenstone, but
|it works with it (or TrueScan, I forgot to ask); it is some kind of a
|shell, and they didn't think it would work with braille, but they
|weren't sure.  I confirmed that what I said about learning and math
|characters is correct.  They said that Arkenstone is available in French
|and German.  They said it would probably work with braille, but I
|suggest that you check it with your particular system.
|
|Hope this helps.

     Many thanks to the author of this message.  It contains many
helpful informations about Arkenstone.  It sure will have a great
importance for me when I will take the great decision.

Third message: 
----------
|I can only comment on one of your questions, yes the device is almost as
|useful as it appears in demonstrations.  I actually own a competitor for
|the Arkenstone the Kurzweil which was more expensive than I would have
|liked but still worth it.  I nearly went mad recently when mine needed to
|be serviced.  Back now.  I was half way through a book.  Now everyone gives
|me books for birthday presents, very nice.  In short I never want to be
|without a document reader again until the world gets sensible and stops
|writing things on paper (a while methinks).

     Great perspective.  It probably has to be tempered by a sentence I
quote hereafter from a news article that was posted some time ago:

|It seems to me that with all reading machines I have used, the
|readability is inversely proportional to how much the text is trying to
|get your attention. <grin>

     I don't know how I should interpret this last sentence.  However,
the number of people who own an OCR let me believe that OCRs are
generally very useful but they don't read every kind of printed text
yet.  So, when I will really purchase an OCR, I will try to scan the
usual texts I want to read.

     Now, I think I've got many elements to make a good choice about
"to buy or not to buy" an OCR.  What will decide me is, first,
financial consideration (even the Arkenstone is very expensive in
France), and second, the degree of proportionality between
unreadability and text importance, and finally, the friendlyness of the
OCR's user interface.

     Many thanks to everyone who helped!  Have a good time!

     Christophe.