[Freegis-list] 508 and GIS

[Matt.Wilkie]

Whew, you don't believe in easy questions do you?

> Can GIS be complient with the 508 laws?  How would you give 
> person without sight the same informtion that GIS gives person's 
> with sight?

An immediately achievable route would be to use a braile printer 
to plot relief bitmaps with standard braile labels which correspond 
to records in a computer spatial database using audio software.

To increase the dynamism you could use a touchscreen instead of
a hardcopy relief map. You would have to simulate the surface
texture using sounds (or something). For instance as the fingertips 
pass over a road a sharp clear sound would emanate while a creek
would be "bubbly" and hills/valleys are indicated by rising/falling
pitch of subtle background tones. This would require custom software

One idea a friend and I tossed about is to use GIS in conjunction
with rapid prototype manufacturing/computerized milling & lathe
machines/3d plotters/etc. to build physical 3 dimensional models
of the landscape. Electronic touch sensors could be embedded at 
points of interest which would transmit audio messages when 
stimulated.

A more dynamic and elaborate method would be to drape a continuous 
electronic touch senstive fabric over the model which would be in 
continuous communication with a host database. 

More involved yet would be to make the physical model itself 
dynamic so that it could be used for any area. You ever see those 
pin profilers in novelty shops http://www.officeplayground.com/pinart.html
http://www.advancedmanufacturing.com/June99/worldwatch.htm#Britain
The device consists of a bed of moveable pins of identical length. 
When an irregular shape is pushed against the pins on one side, 
they are pushed out onto the reverse of the bed to form the shape 
of the object as a pattern of raised pins.