Freedom Scientific, Inc.

Garald Lee Voorhees

Anthony Bowman Stringer

Glen Gordon

Eric Damery

Robert Steinberger

Ralph Ernest Ocampo

Daniel Simkovitz

Robert Anders Steinberger

A method of locking magnified screen views including the steps of magnifying a portion of a graphic user interface on a first monitor to establish a first magnified view having upper, lower, left and right boundaries, magnifying a portion of the graphic user interface on a second monitor to establish a second magnified view having upper, lower, left and right boundaries, whereby the graphic user interface of the first monitor is extended in the direction of the second monitor, responsive to an end-user selectable setting, restricting pointer indicia movement to an area defined by the boundaries of each view that are not between first and second monitor, and responsive to pointer indicia moving from first monitor towards second monitor displaying pointer indicia within second magnified view responsive to pointer indicia crossing the boundary of first magnified view in the direction of second monitor.

View locking multi-monitor screen magnifier

A computer program for rendering a magnified graphic user interface (GUI) establishes an initial magnification level for the graphic user interface and the pointing indicia. The GUI and the pointing indicia are magnified in synchronization until the magnification convergence point is reached. At magnification levels above the convergence point, magnification of the GUI and the pointing indicia becomes decoupled, and only GUI is magnified while the pointing indicia remain at the convergence magnification level. If the GUI magnification level falls below the convergence point, the magnification of GUI and the pointing indicia is recoupled and magnification becomes synchronized. Floor and ceiling magnification values for the pointing indicia may also be established.

Magnification interface with independent pointer sizing

Screen magnification software on a touchscreen device detects when a low-vision user reaches the boundary of a magnified viewport. If additional canvas or menus lay on the other side of the boundary the present invention enables the low-vision user to maintain the same exploration gesture on the touchscreen while causing the underlying canvas to scroll into view in the direction of the gesture. This invention enables the low-vision user to navigate about the entire underlying canvas of a touchscreen graphic user interface with a single, intuitive touchscreen gesture even under magnification.

Gesture-based touch screen magnification

The amount of speech output to a blind or low-vision user using a screen reader application is automatically adjusted based on how the user navigates to a control in a graphic user interface. Navigation by mouse presumes the user has greater knowledge of the identity of the control than navigation by tab keystroke which is more indicative of a user searching for a control. In addition, accelerator keystrokes indicate a higher level of specificity to set focus on a control and thus less verbosity is required to sufficiently inform the screen reader user.

Screen reader with focus-based speech verbosity

The present invention discloses methods of archiving and optimizing lectures, presentations and other captured video for playback, particularly for blind and low vision individuals. A digital imaging device captures a preselected field of view that is subject to periodic change such as a whiteboard in a classroom. A sequence of frames is captured. Frames associated with additions or erasures to the whiteboard are identified. The Cartesian coordinates of the regions of these alterations within the frame are identified. When the presentation is played back, the regions that are altered are enlarged or masked to assist the low vision user. In another embodiment of the invention, the timing of the alterations segments the recorded audio into chapters so that the blind user can skip forward and backward to different sections of the presentation.

Segmenting and playback of whiteboard video capture

A method of rendering customized pointing indicia including the steps of monitoring application program interface messaging and intercepting a call for a unique system pointer identifier. A stored collection of predefined vector shapes is accessed, from which a predefined vector shape is selected correlated to the current system pointer identifier. The stroke and fill attributes are set for the vector shapes. A sequence of rasterized frames of vector shapes having different attributes are created and displayed to produce animated pointing indicia effect. The customized vector shape is rasterized and displayed to an end user operating a computer. Customization, animation, and magnification of pointing indicia are performed responsive to user input, which may be a touchscreen event, body movement, hand gesture, mouse event, or a key stroke.

Vector-based customizable pointing indicia

Whiteboard archiving and presentation method

A method of magnifying text across a computer operating system platform, the method including the steps of loading a background text viewer process on a computer operating system, the background text viewer process having access to internal operating system messaging relating to text sent to a graphics display driver for presentation to an end-user on a GUI, drawing a text viewer on a portion of the GUI whereby the text viewer and a third party application that displays text are shown on the GUI concurrently, intercepting text originating from the third party application and sent to the graphics display driver, the interception performed by the background text viewer process, selecting a substring of intercepted text associated with an end-user focus on the third party application and displaying the substring on the text viewer according to end-user defined settings.

System wide text viewer

A method of rendering magnified pointing indicia including the steps of monitoring application program interface messaging and intercepting a call for a unique system pointer identifier. A stored collection of predefined vector shapes is accessed and from that a predefined vector shape from the collection is selected which is correlated to the current system pointer identifier. A convergence point may be established for maximum pointing indicia magnification in addition to a user-selectable desktop magnification level. The vector shape is scaled in synchronization with the desktop magnification level up to the convergence point whereby the vector shape is no longer scaled up once the convergence point is reached. The scaled vector shape is rasterized and displayed to an end user operating a computer.

Vector-based magnified pointer

A method is provided for displaying information from a distance on a monitor. By defining an image plane, the inventive system displays an area of focus of the plane on the monitor while storing the image in short-term memory. When the user selects a subsequent area of focus it is stored in short-term memory also, along with the first area of focus. The user is allowed to toggle between the stored images without having to recapture previously viewed information by retaining subsequent areas of focus in short-term memory. The user can discard, or delete, unwanted areas of focus or choose to move them to permanent memory. It is also possible to organize multiple areas of focus into groups or albums or save them individually.

Distance camera having a memory module

System-wide content-based text stylization by establishing an array of predefined stylization criteria, intercepting text output generated by an operating system to a graphics device driver, rasterizing the text according to the predefined stylization criteria and passing the rasterized images to the graphics device driver for display. The array of predefined stylization criteria includes criteria that modify font size, font type, font color, font highlighting, underline, bold, italics and invoke character replacement. Stylization may be based on parameters such as syllables, consonants, vowels, and punctuation and/or applied by a lookup table against predefined strings.

Growing community of inventors

Tampa, FL, United States of America

Garald Lee Voorhees