This is a working outline created by the OT Team in February. We will use this to link and edit as we develop each area below.

1. Define the meaning of Digital Vision

* Search online search engines for “Digital Vision Defined” or “Definition” or “Explained”
* A complete definition will be more easily developed at the end of our research endeavors.

Comment (Doug): You might want to call Dr. Steven Mann in Toronto or email him; he may have coined the term. This is a cutting edge idea, only a few experts see this coming, although MIT's media lab and some futurists envisioned the idea many years ago (Stanford University is also a leader). What makes it viable now is the current state of technology. Besides "digital vision", use the following search terms: "wearable computing"; "virtual reality"; "augmented reality"; "mediated reality"; "computer vision".

2. Examples of new technologies

* Compilation of assistive technology’s from websites provided by Doug: Research and find at a goal of four evidence based articles supporting each-device
* Compilation of digital vision technologies found which are not included in Doug’s sources:

1. If we could find one or two devices that are not mentioned which might be ideal for OT’s in the digital vision research clinic

2. Question: Will this clinic have other assistive visual devices: (ie magnifying devices and other assistive technologies currently used by OTs) IF YES:

1. Compiled list of low vision assistive technologies that are currently in use by OTs
2. Possibly look through Adaptive Device catalogs
3. Possibly scan through text books: IDEAS on texts books to look through girls?

Comment (Doug):I know that OT's are moving into low vision services. In this regard, they are using optical (analog) telescopes, magnifiers, and some emerging electronic systems (Jordy, closed circuit TV, etc.). However, this is not where the interesting and cutting edge world resides. Vision therapy should be much broader and more digitally sophisticated than what is occurring (as far as my very weak knowledge base tells me). I don't think OT's should be necessarily taking over what rehab specialists are already doing. I think they should use digital systems that alter perception; improve it, enhance it, back it up, etc. I want you to be innovators.

3. Evidence Based Research

* A goal of four evidence based research articles per-technology provided by Doug
* Evidence as to the use of currently used visual assistive technologies used by OT’s.

1. What diagnoses are these items applied too?
2. Why are they applied to these diagnoses?

4. How OT fits in with digital vision

* General outline of the conditions OT’s assist with: Can be obtained off of the aota.org
* Apply device to autism (as suggested by Doug)

1. General overview of autism
2. In depth discussion of perceptual, visual, and sensory issues accompanying autism
3. How can the researched assistive devices be used to remedy these issues.- Our Main Goal

5. Potential research projects that will be done at the university

* Testing of the efficacy of the aforementioned assistive technologies in conjunction with various visual deficits: We can discuss this after we have researched all AT’s and have done some groundwork
* Suggestions from Doug and Dr. Nagayda?- do you two have any research goals that lie outside of the above mentioned point

6. How will the development of the Digital Vision Lab assist occupational therapy students?

* Relate the use of digital vision assistive technologies back to the Occupational Therapy Framework Domains and Practice & Nelson’s Model
* Other suggestions?

7. How will the development of the Digital Vision Lab assist students on campus? (i.e. those registered with Disability Services)

* Provide informational services on low vision and visual impairments
* Other suggestions?

Comment (Doug): A few years ago I talked with Dr. Mann about proof of concept research. Since digital vision (my interpretation) consists of a new set of diagnostics and remediation tools, it requires a new kind of practitioner. Digital vision solutions are prescribed for individuals. The blind and visually impaired (autistic, learning disabled, etc.) students on campus (and in the community- to respond somewhat to your next issue), would be needed for these proof of concept studies. If OT's evolved in this digital direction, they could end up being these new kind of practitioners.

8. How will the development of the Digital Vision Lab augment the college?

* The university will become a leader in digital vision amongst some of the most prestigious universities in the country.
* Positive humanitarian and professional research publicity
* General attraction of students to the college because of their interest in digital vision research
* Other suggestions?

Comment (Doug): Nicely said; I agree completely.

9. What will the development of the Digital Vision Lab add/give to the community?

* SVSU will be a contact for those who have low vision or are visually impaired
* SVSU will be a contact for professionals who work with low vision and visually impaired clients
* Other suggestions?

Comment (Doug): "Digital vision" goes well beyond vision. It is very applicable to blind individuals, for example. In my own way of thinking, we are really talking about digital perception. This interpretation is what allows us to manipulate many sensory variables that would benefit all categories of people with disabilities. The Hawkeye Project that Steve Mann, Dan Kish, and I outlined is a good example of digital perception applied to blindness. The four goals of the Hawkeye Project could easily be used for our project at SVSU:

1. To build CyberEye vision prosthetic systems
2. To build acoustically enhanced environments that interface with CyberEye units
3. To create an international research lab to design, test, and develop CyberEye systems and associated environmental computer chips
4. To design and develop training strategies and curricular materials to promote the acceptance of the new digital technologies

10.) What are our resources?

People – Compile a list

1. Doug’s list
2. Kim’s Sister
3. Other suggestions?

Colleges

1. Look at other assistive technology research done

1. Harvard
2. McMaster (Toronto)
3. Yale
4. Add others

Governors

1. Contact for funding

Comment (Doug): When you search for "wearable computers" you will find that M.I.T. and Stanford stand out. When you search for "computer vision" you will find that Carnagie Melon University stands out (MIT also). Tyflos was being developed at Wright State University in Ohio. I can get you the names and email addresses of many of the leaders in the field. I am very interested in what else you turn up. It has been a while since I had the time to do internet searching.

11.) Local optometrist involvement

Contact program at Ferris (Kim’s Sister)
1. Are they researching or working with any of the digital vision devices we will be researching?
Contact local optometrist
1. Any with digital vision training
2. Any with digital vision experience and/or are currently working with any digital vision devices.

I know that the OT department is working to develop a low vision clinic in association with St Mary's Hospital (I think; sorry). This will probably be a medically driven, analog clinic; in many ways it will simply duplicate what we are already doing at the Special Needs Clinic but with a medical model. I don't see it being a cutting edge facility other than in a medical direction (which is wonderful of course, just not what I am trying to articulate and develop). I set the Special Needs Clinic up to move as far away as possible from the medical model which does not work well with chronic conditions (this is very much my bias speaking, of course). Local optometrists are on the board of directors of the vision clinic.

Eventually, it will take a village of professionals to pull this huge idea off (medical, optometric, therapists, educators, governments).

No one is probably working with digital vision because it is too new and undeveloped. Jordy may be an exception because it was developed by an optometrist. Let me again underscore that a new profession is developing. Digital peception doctors may very well be OT's (or, in my opinion, OTs ought to be very seriously considered for this role). Maybe SVSU should create a doctoral program to develop these new "perception doctors"...... just thinking outload.

Comment (Doug): I wrote the following and pasted it here because I didn't want to lose the thoughts. I can add, delete, etc as time passes, and especially as the OT team provides information and perspective. It is more an outline than a document.

What follows is a detailed analysis of various categories of children in special education and the many ways digital vision could alter their perception to improve learning and function. We will link to the following generic categories as we develop the digital vision discussion:

1. The Blind Child and digital vision: Echolocation is the baseline human ability that will be exploited to create digital glasses for blind kids; i.e. the ability to perceive ("see") using reflected sound patterns. Echolocation is used now by capable blind individuals. Below are Youtube links to videos that show echolocation being used.

Dan Kish (World Access for the Blind Director)

Ben Underwood

Ben on Ellen

2. The Visually Impaired Child and digital vision
3. The POHI Child and digital vision
4. The Autistic Child and digital vision
5. The ADHD Child and digital vision
6. The Deaf Child and digital vision
7. The CI Child and digital vision

1. Mann Glasses: http://www.eyetap.org/
2. Tyflos: http://www.wright.edu/cgibin/news_item.cgi?663
3. The vOICe: http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm
4. Jordy: http://www.enhancedvision.com/jordy.php
5. Hawkeye: http://www.wayfinding.net/whitepaper.htm
6. Soundflash: http://www.waftb.org/sonic_echolocation_devices.htm
7. Kaysonic: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2000/nf20001211_136.htm

Digital vision is a gigantic conceptualization. The seeds for this revolution were set many years ago, and there has been a steady, fast paced evolution of these technologies, although most of the activity has gone on behind the scenes and very little of it has been applied to handicapped children.

Think about the eye glasses that we wear on our faces to correct for optical anomalies. We are very accustomed to this technology. We don't think much about it and we take it for granted. But this is an "ancient" technology, dating back beyond Ben Franklin. It is an analog technology lingering into the digital age.

Digital Vision is a complicated idea, but in general, we should be able to use digital imaging to do the following for handicapped children:

Children who are visually impaired should be able to use this technology to digitally enhance what they are trying to see, widen the visual field, alter the brightness and color contrast, put more light on a page, etc.

Flooding the eye with light (as well as the object of regard) will combat seasonal affective disorder and may have a positive impact on depression, attention, and energy levels.

Software for face recognition (eventually body language recognition) will be available for children who are blind, visually impaired, autistic, or who have visual memory deficits.

Bionic vision, going beyond the usual perceptual abilities of the human being will be options for handicapped children as well; digital magnification and microscopic vision are easy to understand examples.

Radar and sonar systems used with this technology will enable blind and severely visually impaired children to see using sound patterns. This is a very large and complicated area of study. It is called alternative perception, and it is a specialty area of the Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation. We are in contact with the world's leaders in this discipline.

We can provide kids with the ability to see beyond the normal visual spectrum, into the infrared and ultraviolet regions. We can polarize the light in real time.

These spectacle mounted technologies can be loaded with communications media (receivers). They can be cell phones, play music, play video games in the screens, show movies, capture TV images, get voice and electronic mail, etc. Instant messaging will arrive in the spectacle system.

The "Seeing Eye People" component is very useful for teachers who want to see what their students are looking at. Teachers will be able to see out of the eyes of their students. It will be a big deal to look out the eyes of others, especially for teenagers.

Night vision will be a routine add on to any of these digital systems

Color and brightness contrast enhancement and the ability to eliminate the background so that the figures (object of attention) stand out, will greatly improve the ability of children to see a page of print or signs in the environment.

Everything that can be loaded into hand held devices (cell phone, I Pod, GPS, remote, laptop screen) can also be added into spectacle mounted digital vision systems. GPS and navigation software will be important for blind children.

It can add to the visual display, putting things in the world that are not really there. It can also remove things from the visual world that are not necessary or that are distracting.

It can over lay grids, show underground cables, lay down virtual trails (yellow brick roads to follow)

It can be multi-sensory, adjusting auditory input in parallel with vision input

It can connect to retinal or cortical prosthetics

Digital vision systems will interface with smart environments/spaces and with intelligent ground vehicles

These digital systems can be used as memory managers (recording everything you see for as much of your life as you choose)

Digital vision systems can be used to perceptually train children in special education. Training will be as important as using the devices for problem solving. Training attention and memory for example.

Below is a proposal presented at the World Congress on Blind Wayfinding Technologies in October, 2005. It is written by Dr. Steven Mann at the University of Toronto and his graduate student Chris Aimone. Dr. Mann is called the "Father of Wearable Computing" because he pioneered the ideas behind digital vision.

Title: Invention of electric eyeglasses as a seeing aid and telecommunications device

By: Steve Mann and Chris Aimone
Categories: Artificial vision, augmented cognition, digital vision, wearable computing

Population: Consumers with low vision, cortical vision impairment, mobility specialists (to observe what their students are looking at). Adaptations can be designed for the blind consumer and sighted consumers.

The technology: EyeTap is a device which "allows the eye itself to function as both a display and a camera". Eyetap devices measure the quantity of light in each of a large number of rays of light that converge into at least one eye of the wearer, and then re-synthesize these same rays of light. Ideally, each ray of incoming light generates a collinear ray of synthetic light, in a properly-calibrated Eyetap. Eyetap devices are useful as electric eyeglasses for visual seeing aids.

Stereo Eyetaps modify light passing through both eyes, but many research prototypes (for reasons of ease of construction, etc.) only tap one eye. Eyetap is also the name of an organization founded by inventor Steve Mann to develop and promote Eyetap-related technologies such as wearable computing.

Light impinging on the EyeTap sensor is measured and used to drive the EyeTap effector, known as an aremac (camera, reversed). Typically, however, there is a processor that sits between the sensor and effector, such that the light gets modified, under computer program control before it reaches the eye. Light from the surrounding scene can be altered, supplemented, or occluded by the EyeTap before it is transmitted to the eye. This is sometimes referred to as "computer mediated reality".

Traditional (analog, optical) eyeglasses modify light by refraction, whereas the next generation of eyeglasses, called "EyeTap" devices, modifies light computationally. In the future, instead of having to get new lenses ground, our eyeglass prescriptions will be downloaded over the Internet. These "digital" eyeglasses will provide users with many enhancements over traditional eye wear.

Traditional lens technology has allowed various optical disorders to be corrected and has allowed some of our visual abilities to be extended. Sunglasses and welding glasses allow us to see very bright scenes. Magnifying lenses such as a jeweler might use, allow us to see very small objects. More recently, advanced devices have been made to allow us to see in the dark although they are often bulky and dangerous to wear in situations where there is a possibility of bright lights in the environment.

In contrast, EyeTap digital eyeglasses merge all of these different visual aids into a single device, and are consequently able to perform in situations where each one of these aids used alone will not suffice. Consider driving on a country road at night. In this scenario, one may benefit from using night-vision technology, however the headlights on an occasional oncoming car could be blinding. The use of an EyeTap device would allow the user to see in the dark without the danger of being blinded by the occasional flash of light. Also, for those who suffer from more complicated visual deficiencies, they allow for the use of computational methods to correct the problem.

The more important features of EyeTap devices however, have no analog in traditional eye wear. These digital eyeglasses can help us remember better, through what is called a lifeglog (lifelong cyborglog) or 'glog, for short. A 'glog uses lifelong video capture to record what our eyes see over our entire lifetime. By using the data management capabilities of modern computers, we will be able to recall things that we have seen with perfect clarity in a natural and intuitive way. Having an on-demand photographic memory can help all of us by off loading the task of memorizing semi-important details onto a tireless machine. This would be very beneficial to all of us, since our environments have become so overloaded with information. This lifeglog can also be used to increase personal safety and crime reduction by providing visual evidence for criminal acts, and to allow for trusted third party surveillance in situations where the user may feel threatened.

EyeTap devices can also take an active role in helping us to filter our visual world for salient information. Imagine a world without advertisements! By using advanced computational methods, these electronic eyeglasses have been used to remove the annoying visual propaganda that plagues our urban environments.

Since EyeTap devices can function as a computer display, it allows users to merge cyberspace with the real world. This feature is tremendously important since we are becoming increasingly bound to our computers due to our reliance on the internet as both information and a social resource. As long as we need to focus our attention on a single physical object (such as a computer terminal, PDA or cellular phone), we will only feel more encumbered by computer and telecommunication technology as time passes.

History of the EyeTap Device

Since the 1970s Steve Mann has been inventing, designing, building, and wearing computer systems for the creation of electronically mediated environments.

Among the interesting discoveries found in long-term adaptation to computer-mediated reality was a new way of seeing. Because of the constant view of the world from a photographic perspective, the EyeTap became a way of blurring the boundary between cyberspace and the real world, and appreciating the range of light and shade in everyday life. Throughout the early 1980s, this led Mann toward a new kind of visual art based on seeing how everyday scenes and objects responded to light. Driven by a personal desire to explore new ways of seeing, but through the use of computation rather than optics, Mann has been inventing, designing, and building these technologies since he was doctoral student at M.I.T. The last 25 years of wearing computerized reality mediators in everyday life has provided Dr Mann with insight into some of the issues that would not normally have been discovered in a controlled lab setting. These issues include not only the long-term effects of such devices, but also some sociological and humanistic factors such as how others react to such devices [Mann with Niedzviecki 2001].

The drive to miniaturization led Mann to create, in 1995, devices having a completely normal appearance.

Mann's wearable computer reality mediators have evolved from headsets of the 1970s, to eyeglasses with optics outside the glasses in the 1980s, to eyeglasses with the optics built inside the glasses in the 1990s [Mann 2001] to eyeglasses with mediation zones built into the frames, lens edges, or the cut lines of bifocal lenses in the year 2000 (e.g. exit pupil and associated optics concealed by the transition regions). This research prototype proves the viability of using eyeglass frames as a mediating element. The frames being slender enough (e.g. two millimeters wide) do not appreciably interfere with normal vision, being close enough to the eye to be out of focus.

Below are sections/excerpts from a joint exploration involving IIBN, World Access for the Blind, and Dr. Mann at the University of Toronto. We are envisioning here a prosthetic device to allow blind individuals to see with sound patterns using digital vision technology. This is called the HawkEye Project and the Spectacle mounted systems are called CyberEye.

"Wearable computing has been a promising dream for many years. There has not been however, a centralized all out effort to take wearable systems off the science fiction shelf. The HawkEye Project could move the idea of the cyborg from the strange/alien to the commonplace. The partnership that includes World Access for the Blind, the Humanistic Intelligence Lab, and IIBN is about moving speculation and opportunity off the science fiction shelf and into reality.

Wearable computers (head mounted systems) do two things, they mediate reality, and they augment/alter reality. This is accomplished by putting a screen (glasses are usually used) in front of the eyes. The user of a wearable computer no longer looks at the world naturally. The screen (the inside of the eye glass) contains a video of the world. It is the same world the eyes would see without the glasses, except there is a fast, unrealized delay in the arrival of the image to the eyes. A small digital video camera is used to capture the scene in front of the user. What allows the system to change reality is a tiny computer that takes the video image of the world and alters it before sending it to the eyes. The computer can now do all kinds of things to reality. For example, it can select parts of the visual field to be enlarged, or parts of the field (like roadside advertisements) to be eliminated from the scene. The computer can enhance contrast or allow only black and white images, or see in the ultraviolet or infrared ranges. What the computer can do to reality is open to creative experimentation. The resulting computer-altered images give us "CyberVision," a digital view of the world. We have taken this understanding of CyberVision and modified it to accommodate the needs of blind individuals. We now add auditory mediation and augmentation to the mix. We will build into the wearable system modules that filter sound, sometimes enhancing it and sometimes eliminating noises. More importantly, we will change visual input into auditory wave forms. We are also placing a network of smart auditory chips inside the environment (or placing virtual sound anywhere we want in space). These audified spatial areas are intimately linked to CyberEye in such a way that CyberVision for the blind is enhanced (acuity, depth perception, and pattern recognition sharpened).

When we discuss "artificial vision systems," we use the term "vision" in a broad and perhaps unique way. When we offer the brain unique forms and combinations of sensory input (different from the innate and usual input of everyday experience), and further when we place computational chips inside the human body and throughout the environment, we are creating new (pioneering) ways of perceiving. We are creating new ways of seeing, new kinds of "visual" (digital) perception.

As we enter the new millennium, we find the development of sensors that can see through walls and around corners, that can detect a flock of birds a mile away, and that can measure the deep workings of the body and brain. Sonar, once used to guide great submarines through the deep, is now used by the blind to find their way through the complex world. One blind boy could hit a softball pitched to him from 14 feet. Others have been seen on world TV bicycling through city streets and mountain trials, all without the benefit of eyes. Cameras, once used to take photos, now allow 30 times the range and sharpness than the eye can provide. Indeed, sensors are becoming so powerful and far reaching that the unassisted human brain can no longer be expected to gather and process the full wealth and breadth of information now available - realms that have hitherto not been explored.

Fortunately, with the development of ultrasensors came the development of computers to assist the human brain to gather and process this wealth of information. Computers now help human pilots to guide light aircraft at a-thousand miles an hour through the tree tops, and jumbo passenger jets practically land themselves. Radio telescopes throughout the world are coordinated by computers to provide composite images that the human brain can understand. Cameras hooked to computers are now allowing the blind to read.

With the increased power of sensing technology and computers, concurrent with their decreasing size, cost, and power requirements, we have finally entered an age where the unknown can become known, and the unseen can be made visible. Technology can now take the place of the human eye where it fails to see.

Computer mediated vision can improve the clarity of the environment when compromised by darkness, physical barriers such as walls or clutter, or obscurity such as thick smoke, dust, or fog. Computer vision systems can mediate the perception of the environment by making walls transparent or making walls visible to the blind.

Dr. Mann joined with IIBN and with World Access for the Blind in California in the early part of 2000s to explore digital vision. The concept study was called the HawkEye Project, and the digital spectacles were called CyberEye systems. Here are excerpts from that document:

"The world was designed for the eye. Architecture, pathways, signs and symbols, vehicles, everything was designed around the vision system. For all of history we had little choice but to create the world in this manner. Now, however, in the digital age, we can overlay the visual environment with computer chips that sense, communicate, network, and think. In short, we can make the world "visible" for the blind traveler by adding and adapting to the visual design. We can do this using CyberEye systems that interact with a world that has been "modified" to filter, enhance, and produce signals that make it easier for blind people to "see without sight."

CyberEye is a sophisticated wearable computer capable of housing and networking modular plug-in units. These modules are designed to provide sensory input that is optimally compatible with the brain's information processing system.

CyberEye is a generic term that can refer to various designs for artificial sensing. One CyberEye might be radar intensive while another might be dedicated to enhancing echolocation. Since the wearable computing substrate can hold various modules, the creation of CyberEye systems can be custom designed to address the specific needs of individual consumers.

CyberEye is a method for creating CyberVision , a new kind of perception that mediates and augments sensory input, and that redefines what it means "to see" in the digital age. The human eye is a sophisticated piece of bio-technology developed by nature over millions of years to perform specific functions - to make specific information available to the brain. Using the human brain as the primary computer for receiving computer mediated patterns from CyberEye will enable scientists not only to emulate the functions of the eye, but to go beyond them.

CyberEye is a comprehensive strategy for addressing disabilities associated with blindness. CyberEye modules will eventually allow access to print, signs, and symbols.

CyberEye systems will allow the consumer to sense, identity, and interact with objects. CyberEye units will allow blind individuals to navigate fluidly through the environment. Modules will allow users to identify people and read body language, and CyberEye systems will probe the world of visual aesthetics.