{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,31]],"date-time":"2026-07-31T04:27:31Z","timestamp":1785472051473,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,18]],"date-time":"2022-02-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1645142400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003725","name":"National Research Foundation of Korea","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2019R1F1A105775713"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2019R1F1A105775713"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003725","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Gachon University research fund of 2020","award":["GCU-202008460007"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["GCU-202008460007"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The global prevalence of visual impairment due to diseases and accidents continues to increase. Visually impaired individuals rely on their auditory and tactile senses to recognize surrounding objects. However, accessible public facilities such as tactile pavements and tactile signs are installed only in limited areas globally, and visually impaired individuals use assistive devices such as canes or guide dogs, which have limitations. In particular, the visually impaired are not equipped to face unexpected situations by themselves while walking. Therefore, these situations are becoming a great threat to the safety of the visually impaired. To solve this problem, this study proposes a living assistance system, which integrates object recognition, object extraction, outline generation, and braille conversion algorithms, that is applicable both indoors and outdoors. The smart glasses guide objects in real photos, and the user can detect the shape of the object through a braille pad. Moreover, we built a database containing 100 objects on the basis of a survey to select objects frequently used by visually impaired people in real life to construct the system. A performance evaluation, consisting of accuracy and usefulness evaluations, was conducted to assess the system. The former involved comparing the tactile image generated on the basis of braille data with the expected tactile image, while the latter confirmed the object extraction accuracy and conversion rate on the basis of the images of real-life situations. As a result, the living assistance system proposed in this study was found to be efficient and useful with an average accuracy of 85% a detection accuracy of 90% and higher, and an average braille conversion time of 6.6 s. Ten visually impaired individuals used the assistance system and were satisfied with its performance. Participants preferred tactile graphics that contained only the outline of the objects, over tactile graphics containing the full texture details.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22041601","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,21]],"date-time":"2022-02-21T08:34:47Z","timestamp":1645432487000},"page":"1601","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Automatic Object Detection Algorithm-Based Braille Image Generation System for the Recognition of Real-Life Obstacles for Visually Impaired People"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"given":"Dayeon","family":"Lee","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"IT Convergence Engineering and Computer Convergence Major, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jinsoo","family":"Cho","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"IT Convergence Engineering and Computer Convergence Major, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (2021, September 30). Cause and Timing of Disability. Available online: https:\/\/kosis.kr\/statHtml\/statHtml.do?orgId=331&tblId=DT_33109_F37&conn_path=I2."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"The Online Database of Health Reporting (GBE) (2021, October 01). The Information System of the Federal Health Report and Statement of the Federal Republic of Germany. Available online: https:\/\/www.gbe-bund.de\/gbe\/."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"World Health Organization (WHO), and World Bank (2021, October 02). World Report on Disability 2011. Available online: https:\/\/www.who.int\/disabilities\/world_report\/2011\/report.pdf."},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"World Health Organization (WHO) (2021, October 14). Blindness and Vision Impairment. Available online: https:\/\/www.who.int\/en\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/blindness-and-visual-impairment."},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Ministry of Health and Welfare (2021, October 14). The Number of Registered Disabled Persons by Type of Disability and Gender Nationwide, Available online: https:\/\/kosis.kr\/statHtml\/statHtml.do?orgId=117&tblId=DT_11761_N001&conn_path=I2."},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"German Federal Statistical Office (2021, October 15). People with Severe Disabilities with ID (Absolute and 100 per Person). (Population of 1000). Features: Years, Region, Type of Disability, Degree of Disability, Available online: https:\/\/www.gbe-bund.de\/gbe\/pkg_isgbe5.prc_menu_olap?p_uid=gast&p_aid=21134557&p_sprache=D&p_help=0&p_indnr=218&p_indsp=&p_ityp=H&p_fid=."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kostopoulos, K., Moustakas, K., Tzovaras, D., and Nikolakis, G. (2007, January 7\u20139). Haptic Access to Conventional 2D Maps for the Visually Impaired. Proceedings of the 2007 3DTV Conference, Kos, Greece.","DOI":"10.1109\/3DTV.2007.4379489"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"413","DOI":"10.1093\/iwc\/iwu006","article-title":"Interactive audio-haptic map explorer on a tactile display","volume":"27","author":"Zeng","year":"2015","journal-title":"Interact. Comput."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"310","DOI":"10.1109\/TNSRE.2007.897029","article-title":"Visual to tactile conversion of vector graphics","volume":"15","author":"Krufka","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"297","DOI":"10.1080\/01449290600636694","article-title":"A user study on tactile graphic generation methods","volume":"25","author":"Krufka","year":"2006","journal-title":"Behav. Inf. Technol."},{"key":"ref_11","first-page":"691","article-title":"Auto Braille Translator using Matlab","volume":"12","author":"Kim","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Korea Inst. Electron. Commun. Sci."},{"key":"ref_12","first-page":"21","article-title":"Development of a raspberry Pi-based banknote recognition system for the visually impaired","volume":"23","author":"Lee","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Soc.-Bus. Stud."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"404","DOI":"10.1177\/0145482X19876463","article-title":"The Comprehension of STEM Graphics via a Multisensory Tablet Electronic Device by Students with Visual Impairments","volume":"113","author":"Hahn","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Vis. Impair. Blind."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kim, S., Park, E.S., and Ryu, E.S. (2019). Multimedia vision for the visually impaired through 2d multiarray braille display. Appl. Sci., 9.","DOI":"10.3390\/app9050878"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kim, S., Yeongil Ryu, J.C., and Ryu, E.S. (2019). Towards Tangible Vision for the Visually Impaired through 2D Multiarray Braille Display. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19235319"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"391","DOI":"10.1007\/s10209-017-0538-8","article-title":"Touching graphical applications: Bimanual tactile interaction on the HyperBraille pin-matrix display","volume":"17","author":"Prescher","year":"2018","journal-title":"Univers. Access Inf. Soc."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"K\u0142opotowska, A., and Magdziak, M. (2021). Tactile Architectural Drawings\u2014Practical Application and Potential of Architectural Typhlographics. Sustainability, 13.","DOI":"10.3390\/su13116216"},{"key":"ref_18","first-page":"239","article-title":"GPS Talking For Blind People","volume":"2","author":"Morad","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. Emerg. Technol. Web Intell."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2","DOI":"10.1016\/j.procs.2014.02.002","article-title":"Location based Services for the Blind Supported by RFID Technology","volume":"27","author":"Fernandes","year":"2014","journal-title":"Procedia Comput. Sci."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liao, C., Choe, P., Wu, T., Tong, Y., Dai, C., and Liu, Y. (2013). RFID-Based Road Guiding Cane System for the Visually Impaired. Cross-Cultural Design. Methods, Practice, and Case Studies, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-39143-9_10"},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"Redmon, J., Divvala, S., Girshick, R., and Farhadi, A. (July, January 26). You only look once: Unified, real-time object detection. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Las Vegas, NV, USA."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Redmon, J., and Farhadi, A. (2017, January 21\u201326). YOLO9000: Better, faster, stronger. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Honolulu, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/CVPR.2017.690"},{"key":"ref_23","unstructured":"Redmon, J., and Farhadi, A. (2018). YOLOv3: An Incremental Improvement. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Kathuria, A. (2021, September 06). What Is New in YOLO v3?. Available online: https:\/\/towardsdatascience.com\/yolo-v3-object-detection-53fb7d3bfe6b."},{"key":"ref_25","first-page":"133","article-title":"Recent Trends of Object and Scene Recognition Technologies for Mobile\/Embedded Devices","volume":"34","author":"Lee","year":"2019","journal-title":"Electron. Telecommun. Trends"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"99227","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.2996770","article-title":"Colorectal disease classification using efficiently scaled dilation in convolutional neural network","volume":"8","author":"Poudel","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Siddiqui, Z.A., Park, U., Lee, S.W., Jung, N.J., Choi, M., Lim, C., and Seo, J.H. (2018). Robust powerline equipment inspection system based on a convolutional neural network. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18113837"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"309","DOI":"10.1145\/1015706.1015720","article-title":"\u201cGrabCut\u201d interactive foreground extraction using iterated graph cuts","volume":"23","author":"Rother","year":"2004","journal-title":"ACM Trans. Graph. TOG"},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"OpenCV (2021, September 07). Interactive Foreground Extraction Using GrabCut Algorithm. Available online: https:\/\/docs.opencv.org\/master\/d8\/d83\/tutorial_py_grabcut.html."},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Ghuneim, A.G. (2021, September 07). Contour Tracing. Available online: http:\/\/www.imageprocessingplace.com\/downloads_V3\/root_downloads\/tutorials\/contour_tracing_Abeer_George_Ghuneim\/author.html."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"679","DOI":"10.1109\/TPAMI.1986.4767851","article-title":"A computational approach to edge detection","volume":"PAMI-8","author":"Canny","year":"1986","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell."},{"key":"ref_32","unstructured":"Berry, S. (2021, September 07). Big Yellow Teapot. Available online: https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/unloveable\/2388661262."},{"key":"ref_33","unstructured":"Gonzalez, R.C., and Woods, R.E. (2008). Digital Image Processing, Pearson\/Prentice Hall."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"910","DOI":"10.1515\/znc-1981-9-1040","article-title":"A Simple Coding Procedure Enhances a Neuron\u2019s Information Capacity","volume":"36","author":"Laughlin","year":"1981","journal-title":"Z. F\u00fcr Naturforschung C"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"184","DOI":"10.1016\/S0146-664X(77)80011-7","article-title":"Image Enhancement by Histogram transformation","volume":"6","author":"Hummel","year":"1975","journal-title":"Comput. Graph. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"355","DOI":"10.1016\/S0734-189X(87)80186-X","article-title":"Adaptive histogram equalization and its variations","volume":"39","author":"Pizer","year":"1987","journal-title":"Comput. Vis. Graph. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_37","unstructured":"International Commission on Illumination (2004). Colorimetry, Commission Internationale de l\u2019Eclairage. CIE Technical Report."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"723","DOI":"10.1109\/78.80892","article-title":"A class of fast Gaussian binomial filters for speech and image processing","volume":"39","author":"Haddad","year":"1991","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Signal Process."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"35","DOI":"10.1115\/1.3662552","article-title":"A New Approach to Linear Filtering and Prediction Problems","volume":"82","author":"Kalman","year":"1960","journal-title":"Trans. ASME\u2013J. Basic Eng."},{"key":"ref_40","unstructured":"Gonzalez, R., and Wintz, P. (1987). Digital Image Processing, Addison-Wesley. [2nd ed.]."},{"key":"ref_41","unstructured":"OpenCV (2021, September 08). Eroding and Dilating. Available online: https:\/\/docs.opencv.org\/4.x\/db\/df6\/tutorial_erosion_dilatation.html."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lin, T.Y., Maire, M., Belongie, S., Bourdev, L., Girshick, R., Hays, J., Perona, P., Ramanan, D., Zitnick, C.L., and Doll\u00e1r, P. (2014). Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context. arXiv.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-10602-1_48"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"99","DOI":"10.1007\/s11277-016-3182-3","article-title":"A novel image identifier generation method using luminance and location","volume":"94","author":"Park","year":"2017","journal-title":"Wirel. Pers. Commun."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"64","DOI":"10.1016\/j.patrec.2018.08.010","article-title":"Visual saliency guided complex image retrieval","volume":"130","author":"Wang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Pattern Recognit. Lett."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/22\/4\/1601\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T22:22:28Z","timestamp":1760134948000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/22\/4\/1601"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,18]]},"references-count":44,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,2]]}},"alternative-id":["s22041601"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s22041601","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,18]]}}}