Digital magnifier for visually impaired from cheap webcam – prototype ready

[Helios <heliooos gmail com>]

Hi,
as written in previous posts, my sister is looking for a cheap device
which could replace expensive commercially available digital
magnifiers for visually impaired. Finally she was (together with
brother and grandpa) able to construct a prototype of a stand
magnifier – DIY stand similar to that used on microscopes, with coarse
and fine vertical camera position setting. Using normal cheap Genius
webcam, this device can magnify standard book text so that one row is
as high as one half of the screen height.

The software used to display the webcam video is Cheese in Vinux
distro. However it still does not have appropriate color filters like
high contrast B/W and W/B (inverse), high contrast blue on yellow/
yellow on blue. It also does not have the guide line – horizontal
bright color (red) thick line in the center of the screen, which makes
it easier for user to focus eyes on the text line. The guys here told
us, that this should be not difficult to achieve, however we were not
able to get it working (probably needs someone with at least basic
programming skills).

If someone is interested in this device (could be very useful also for
elderly people), here is an article containing also many photos and a
video how it works:
http://petrahele.webnode.cz/news/assistive/

regards

Helios