Re: modified webcam software for visually impaired

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Sat, 2011-01-01 at 22:56 +0100, Helios wrote:
> Hi,
> we are just testing a standard webcam to be used as a digital
> magnifier for visually impaired users. Such gadget could be very
> useful, as many low vision users need such device, but those
> commercially available are Windows only and mostly very expensive.
> We tested common Genius webcam with manual focus feature using Cheese,
> however, there are no features needed for this kind of users (supplied
> by my visually impaired sister):
> - inverse color mode
> - color profiles (eg. yellow text on blue background - simple runs in
> BW mode only and replaces black with yellow and white with blue)
> - guiding lines (can provide some screenshots)
> - and some others
> 
> WxCam, which looked very promising, is not possible to install on my
> sisters laptop (Sysinfo output attached) running Vinux 2.0. Are there
> any plans for such features? Maybe, they could be just added to Cheese
> or WxCam. In my opinion, this could help a lot of users as the price
> of the webcams is much lower and no additional payment for commercial
> software would be needed.

Daniel Siegel (the Cheese maintainer) wrote a tutorial for the new
developer demos on how to write a simple webcam viewer application.
You can see a draft build of the tutorial here:

http://library.gnome.org/devel/demos/nightly/magic-mirror.vala.html.en

The basic functionality isn't that hard. Somebody could build off
that tutorial, add some filters for the things you describe, and
add a bit of polish.

I watched Daniel crank out new Cheese filters in a matter of minutes.
I've CC'd him on this email.

Daniel, how hard do you think it would be for somebody to write an
application like this, with the filters described?

Thanks,
Shaun