Computer scientists, Vinitha Khambadkar and Eelke Folmer, from the University of Nevada have created a gesture-controlled wearable device that helps the visually impaired navigate the world around them.
They’ve named the device GIST, or Gestural Interface for Remote Nonvisual Spatial Perception. Using a variety of gesture commands the user can prompt the device, worn around the neck, to provide information on whether there’s a person nearby, how far away an object is from the user, or the predominant color of an object. The device can also measure the depth of a particular area indicated with the hand.
In order to interact with the device, the user must have some sight, and luckily most blind people can perceive at least vague shapes and light sources.
GIST is based on the Microsoft Kinect sensor which interacts with hand signals, the device detects the environment surrounding the user’s hand to provide an audible answer.
In the following video, a few use cases are demonstrated, such as a woman using the color command to locate a water bottle and the object distance command to find it with her hand and pick it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfZV9jt3240
GIST turns “the user’s hands into versatile sensing rods,” the authors wrote in the paper introducing the device, allowing visually impaired users to do nearly everything they could with a white cane while leaving their hands free for other things.
