Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 17
City model of Vienna (screenshot from
www.3DModell
)
known to use tactile maps, his teacher Niessen making these maps for him
(
www.Kalisch
)
.
Today, there exist traditional tactile media like relief models and tactile globes
and new tactile cartographic media like virtual tactile displays, audio-tactile dia-
logue systems and GPS-supported navigation systems. Geiger (
2008
) investigated
structure and function of tactile cartographic media, as well as the interactions
between them.
Tactile maps can be generated fully or at least partially automatically. Tech-
nologies for the production of tactile maps are for example thermoplastic trans-
formation, microcapsule paper and fuser, models, tactile print and embossing.
With the audio-tactile dialogue systems, which use a combination of tactile and
aural perception for cartographic communication, a fully matured multimedia
information system is given to blind people. During recent years new technologies
were developed in order to be able to also use the internet. But these technologies
are not yet sophisticated enough for practical use. Multimodal dynamic computer
interfaces are indicated in future development (Koch
2012
).
A recent study at the Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography of the
Finnish Geodetic Institute investigated the generation of haptic landscape models
with rapid prototyping for visually impaired people and aimed at an operational,
largely automated production chain. Input for this project were digital orthophotos
and laser scanning data from a LIDAR system. Besides generating a DEM (Digital
Elevation Model) and a DSM (Digital Surface Model) additional data like
buildings and roads were vectorised. These data were divided into object groups
and saved as different vector layers. Afterwards, all vector layers were exported to
raster files for further processing. Texture for the geometry model was based on an
orthophoto, which was adapted to the needs of visually impaired people. Several
