In public spaces, “accessibility” often exclusively refers to physical accessibility. ADA regulations specify detailed requirements for stairs, steps, doors etc. for physical accessibility considerations. Much less has been emphasized or done for “vision accessibility”.
The visual accessibility of a space refers to the effectiveness with which vision can be used to travel safely and pursue intended activities in the space. Visual accessibility of a space is lower for impaired vision, leading to higher risks of encountering hazardous situations, falling, and being disoriented in navigation.
In vision rehabilitation, enhancing vision accessibility of our environments is an important intervention approach. Typically, therapists make a list of items that should be inspected and make expert judgement of whether each of the items are sufficiently visible for a patient with certain level of vision loss. However, it is difficult for people with normal vision, even those with vision rehab expertise, to guess which environmental features were visually (in)accessible for a low vision individual.
Our research aims to fill in this gap by developing datasets and models to objectively evaluate the visual accessibility of environmental features, given a patient’s vision status.
– Our Vision Accessibility Dataset includes a comprehensive list of objects relevant to spatial navigation, with visibility variations caused by common factors such as lighting and viewing angle, labeled by a large sample of low vision individuals with varying degrees of vision loss.
– Our Visually-Impaired Computer Vision Models are developed based on a new concept of creating computer vision models with “vision impairment” to mimic and predict what an individual with specified level of low vision may or may not see in an environment.
Team
Primary Investigator:
Yingzi Xiong, PhD. Johns Hopkins University.
Co-Investigator:
Roberto Manduchi, PhD. University of California, Santa Cruz.
Gordon Legge, PhD. University of Minnesota.
Judy Goldstein, OD. Johns Hopkins University.
Pradeep Ramulu, MD, PhD. Johns Hopkins University.
Chris Bradley, PhD. Johns Hopkins University.
Kristen Shifflett, OT, CLVT. Johns Hopkins University.
Collaborators:
Rama Chellappa, PhD. Johns Hopkins University.
Peng Cheng, PhD. Johns Hopkins University.
Arathy Kartha, PhD. State University of New York.
Robert Shakespeare, PhD. Shakespeare Lighting Design, LLC.
Graduate Student:
Qingying Gao. Johns Hopkins University.
Yuqian Chen. University of California, Santa Cruz.
Undergraduate Student:
Bill Han. Johns Hopkins University.
Clara Kim. Johns Hopkins University.
Funding
NIH/NEI R01EY036360
Simerl Rising Professorship
Recruitment Support
Lions Low Vision Clinic
Wilmer Glaucoma Clinic
See Us Network