2018-01-10 08:31:08 (edited by magurp244 2018-01-10 09:26:03)

Some may recall that I mentioned that 3D Pens were a thing awhile ago, well I did a bit of digging recently and as it turns out the [3Doodler Start] 3D Pen has been endorsed some time last year by The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) for its ease of use by those with visual impairments. Its [currently] being used by blind students at Priestley Smith School in Birmingham to help teach subjects such as math and science, among other things.

The company behind the 3Doodler Start apparently spent some time working closely with the accessibility community to add more tactile and accessible functions to their 3D Start version, and even have audio instructions available on their site [here] and instructions in braille upon request. It currently retails for around 50$ US on their site, although you can also find used models for 40$ US on amazon.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-01-10 09:46:16

Hi.
Wow. Thanks so much for sharing. I have looked at the product, but didn't thought it was usable by blind people. I'll take a look at this for sure...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-01-11 08:19:48

Oh man oh man I am so excited you brought this up.  I always say I'd love to be able to draw again, but I just didn't see any way to do it.  Wasn't the best artist, but I did love to do it when I had my vision and would liek to revisit it so definitely going to look into this pen smile

2018-01-12 02:19:10

If your interested there's other art and drawing resources for the visually impaired available that you may find useful, generally they tend to use different, more tactile methods that sighted people may not be accustomed to when painting or drawing, such as textured papers, scented markers/paints, wikki sticks for outlines, using tape as stencils, or other specific methods for line art, painting, pottery and sculpting, etc.

[How the Blind Draw]

[Blind Artists]: Also includes references to "Elisabeth Salzhauer Axel’s book Art beyond sight: a resource guide to art, creativity, and visual impairment", along with "Drawing and the Blind: Perceptions to Touch, by Jonathan Harchick".

[RNIB: Arts and Crafts]

You could also check out accessible digital paint tools such as TactileView, SVGDraw01, BlindPaint, or BrushTone. There's also OpenSCAD with AudiMesh3D that somewhat works for scripting and 3D modelling.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-01-12 14:31:25

Please, could You post some evidence about It, that It is accessible this 3doodler for the blind people?
I would like to write some article about It, but I need some sources for this thing. Maybe those people for which I'll write It would like to have also some sources.

Ja volim samo kafu sa Rakijom.

2018-01-13 01:05:46

One of the links in my original post contains a video showing the blind students at Priestley Smith School using the pens themselves in a classroom setting and offers a testimonial and some information, for convience i'll link the video [here]. Theres a few other articles floating around such as [here] and [here], although they both seem to reference an article [here] posted by 3Doodler themselves thats seems the most indepth about it. The post [here] also has a few extra images showing older participants using the pens themselves.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-01-13 04:22:23

You can download the audio files, uh, sort of? That is to say there is no direct download for the audio files, but if you go under the file tab in your browser and select "save page as" it will download the html web page and its data files in a similarly named folder, which the audio files will be in. Or alternatively you can download the text version of the instructions. Both can be found [here].

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-01-15 09:16:48

Hi.
I have now read about the 3Doodler Start, and it looks like an amazing product... It not just let us draw, but also do 3D printing. I will get this in the near future for sure...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-01-20 07:33:30

@4 thanks for such an awesome guide to drawing for the blind!  I'm going to try  the accessible paint tool and see hwo it goes smile