Tactile Maps For Blind Student-help

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by 1312732_deleted, Sep 23, 2016.

  1. Hi, I am a legally blind high school student (my parents gave permission to post) and I am looking for a solution to my map problem and hoping 3D printing can solve my issue practically. It is very difficult for a blind/visually impaired student to learn maps and even understand how local roads are situated in relation to each other. I would love to take a Google map image, covert from 2D to 3D and then send to a 3D printer to make a tactile map for the blind. It would be nice to have a tactile map of a college campus, malls that I could feel and see. My parents are "old school" and have been making time consuming tactile maps using wooden board, balsa wood for buildings, string for streets, felt for water, etc. Any ideas welcomed in the 3D printing application area. I am interested in the possibilities that 3D printing can do. Your techy savvy student.
     
  2. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    Unless your area is particularly mountainous, I would suggest that you download street maps rather than terrain maps. One method you could use is: Download the street maps, convert them to grayscale, and then use the Shapeways 2dto3d converter to produce the 3d model.
    For more complex options, there are several good tutorials if you just google around a bit.. here's one that I've used:
    http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Terrain-From-Google-Maps-With-SketchUp/

    What would be really interesting is if you could manage to convert the street names to braille by swapping out the fonts.
     
  3. Sir, thank you for replying. I live in the Midwest so mountains are not an issue. lol Thank you for your helpful link. I will forward it to people who can look at it for me. It would be nice to even have 3D tactile maps of a college campus and even an idea how roads and businesses are laid out in my area without having to actually walk it. Thanks again for taking the time to reply to my post.
     
  4. stannum
    stannum Well-Known Member
    You should consider laser cutting too.
     
  5. If I may ask some questions, can you tell me what laser cutting feels like? Does laser cutting mean that everything is cut into something and nothing raised, like letters grooved in a wood sign? Can laser cutting have raised dimension? Can roads be grooved into plastic, water and ponds have a rough texture, bus stops have a little raised dot and buildings be 3D? I am just wondering if the capabilities are better than 3D printing or more restrictive. I can try to google but if you know the answers right off and have experience, your knowledge would be appreciative. Sometimes what I read turns out not to be feasible in a practice sense. It can be frustrating.
     
  6. stannum
    stannum Well-Known Member
    Laser is used to cut different materials (wood, cork, acrylic plastic, leather, cloth, felt, card, paper, etc), normally flat. But not all them have to be the same thickness. It can also engrave the surface, but not raise it. It can affect the edges, but the rest is left as it was.
    You can already buy some examples, from simple street maps where building blocks are removed so you get a web of streets, to more complex maps with multiple height levels by stacking layers of materials to form the surface and combining different types and colors (useless for you) to add more information.
    It would be similar to what you have been getting done by hand.
     
  7. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member
    There's 2 options. We actually had maps of NY subways printed a few years ago. It was just a web of lines. You could use the road map for our 2D to 3D app. If you need help with this, I'd be willing to help you out. Just send me a message.

    The laser option is a good one too. I run my own business outside of shapeways where I offer laser etching (as well as 3D modeling, printing, and scanning). I could etch the roads, or I could etch around the roads so the roads would be raised up. The second option would take longer, and time is money. Or I could cut out the roads, which would be quicker than etching. So you'd have a web of roads.