New tools for automating tactile geographic map translation

We present a new software program that converts a geographic map given in a formatted image file to a tactile form suitable for blind students. The software is designed to semi-automate the translation from visual maps to tactile versions, and to help tactile graphics specialists to be faster and more efficient in producing the tactile geographic map. The developed tools cover a wide variety of image processing techniques, optical character recognition and Braille translation.