Recent News

Lee Stearns and the HandSight project were featured in the Big Ten Network's news site, in an article titled "How Maryland researchers are improving reading for the visually impaired: BTN LiveBIG".

The HandSight project was recently featured in PC Magazine. The article described our work in using a finger-mounted camera to read printed text. Quote: A group of scientists at the University of Maryland have come up with a novel solution to the problem of allowing the visually impaired to read. The team, led by assistant professor of computer science Jon Froehlich, developed a device that allows blind people to read text without the aid of braille, which isn't always available. Read more at pcmag.com: PC Magazine: Fingertip Camera Reads to the Blind

The HandSight project was recently featured in New Scientist, a British science and technology magazine. The article described our work in using a finger-mounted camera to read printed text. New Scientist: Tiny fingertip camera helps blind people read without braille

Lee Stearns presented the HandSight team's work at the ASSETS 2016 conference, held in Reno, Nevada this year. The presentation covered our recently published TACCESS journal article titled "Evaluating Haptic And Auditory Directional Guidance To Assist Blind People In Reading Printed Text Using Finger-Mounted Cameras."

Projects

HandSight

2013 – Present

Publications

Design of an Augmented Reality Magnification Aid for Low Vision Users

Lee Stearns, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ASSETS 2018

Applying Transfer Learning to Recognize Clothing Patterns Using a Finger-Mounted Camera

Lee Stearns, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2018 | Acceptance Rate: 58.3% (42 / 72)

HandSight: A Touch-Based Wearable System to Increase Information Accessibility for People with Visual Impairments

Lee Stearns

UMD CS PhD Dissertation

TouchCam: Realtime Recognition of Location-Specific On-Body Gestures to Support Users with Visual Impairments

Lee Stearns, Uran Oh, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

ACM IMWUT December 2017

Investigating Microinteractions for People With Visual Impairments and the Potential Role of on-Body Interaction

Uran Oh, Lee Stearns, Alisha Pradhan, Jon E. Froehlich, Leah Findlater

Proceedings of ASSETS 2017 | Acceptance Rate: 26.2% (33 / 126)

Augmented Reality Magnification for Low Vision Users with the Microsoft Hololens and a Finger-Worn Camera

Lee Stearns, Victor De Souza, Jessica Yin, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

Recognizing Clothing Colors and Visual Textures Using a Finger-Mounted Camera: An Initial Investigation

Alexander Medeiros, Lee Stearns, Leah Findlater, Chuan Chen, Jon E. Froehlich

Extended Abstract Proceedings of ASSETS 2017

Localization of Skin Features on the Hand and Wrist From Small Image Patches

Lee Stearns, Uran Oh, Bridget Cheng, Leah Findlater, David Ross, Rama Chellappa, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ICPR 2016

Evaluating Haptic and Auditory Directional Guidance to Assist Blind People in Reading Printed Text Using Finger-Mounted Cameras

Lee Stearns, Ruofei Du, Uran Oh, Catherine Jou, Leah Findlater, David Ross, Jon E. Froehlich

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 2016

Evaluating Angular Accuracy of Wrist-based Haptic Directional Guidance for Hand Movement

Jonggi Hong, Lee Stearns, Tony Cheng, Jon E. Froehlich, David Ross, Leah Findlater

Proceedings of GI 2016 | Acceptance Rate: 39.4% (13 / 33)

Supporting Everyday Activities for Persons with Visual Impairments Through Computer Vision-Augmented Touch

Leah Findlater, Lee Stearns, Ruofei Du, Uran Oh, David Ross, Rama Chellappa, Jon E. Froehlich

Poster Proceedings of ASSETS 2015

The Design and Preliminary Evaluation of a Finger-Mounted Camera and Feedback System to Enable Reading of Printed Text for the Blind

Lee Stearns, Ruofei Du, Uran Oh, Yumeng Wang, Rama Chellappa, Leah Findlater, Jon E. Froehlich

Proceedings of ACVR 2014