Tactile Maps Guidelines This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. LiveBinder Resources Chapter 2. BANA Guidelines Chapter 3. Sample Map Construction Chapter 4. Q & A Chapter 5. Resources The speaker provides a description of the documents shared on his computer screen throughout this webinar. Transcript Start [Music] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. [Music face out] Fade to black. Chapter 1. LiveBinder Resources Chris: Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining the webinar today. The webinar today is tactile maps guidelines, thank you for taking time to learn information about tactile maps. There are no specific handouts for today. Rather we're going to be accessing information through LiveBinder. If there are things that come out, for resources, please add them to the chat. It will be provided in the transcript later so that I can use as a resource to know what to add to the LiveBinder to make those resources available. The LiveBinder can be accessed through the URL which I will make available in a minute. I will share my screen that will be available through a QR code. There's a QR code that gives a link to take you to the LiveBinder or use the URL I'm going to share in one second here. The URL is-- all lower case, http://bit.ly/tactilemap. When you use either the QR code or the link, it will take you to a LiveBinder, which has some of the resources that will-- that we'll be talking about today, also includes other resources for tactile maps, then I'm going to-- basically this will be like I'm trying something new, a little bit like a cooking show for lack of a better way to put it, we'll be creating some things on screen that I'll be able to share what's happening on the computer screen so that you will be able to follow along with the creation of those tactile maps and if there are questions that you have, please do enter those into the chat area so that the folks in the media term, I typically will be paying attention to the screen and not realizing that they came in. They will be able to let me know when a question comes in. Please feel free to do that. I'm going to minimize the QR code, it's okay to ask for that again in the chat area if you missed that. I'm going to bring this over to the LiveBinder. This is going to be sharing the screen. If you are using a LiveBinder that's on a-- if you are accessing this information through your smart phone or through your iPad, the screen display might look a little bit different. I'm using just a laptop computer at the moment. The formatting might change based on the device that you are using. In this LiveBinder we have the table of contents has tabs on it for the tactile maps, map making materials and equipment. Company is producing tactile maps and auditory maps. We're going to be focused in the first tab the tactile maps, which has some resources for us. So I'm going to click on that tab and it's going to bring up the contents of that LiveBinder tab on to the left side. So there's all sorts of resources here, not all of which we'll get to today. There's everything from creating tactile maps to videos, I'm using a 3 D pen. We are going to do a small portion of this, try to just take it in bite sized pieces. Many of the resources that we're going to be reviewing today are from others who have created them over the years. One would be University of Oregon. There's also quite a bit of material that's in a SWOMA presentation done by Pat van Geem formerly here at Texas School for the Blind, unfortunately passed away, but he's given us a great legacy of resources in terms of tactile maps and standardization and this webinar was really a hope to continue some of the passion that he had for tactile maps and standardization in terms of symbols so any user of any tactile maps would be able to access the information knowing it would be the same type of symbol on any map, just as on a print map, the symbols would be same, the same would be true for a tactile map. We're going to go ahead and begin with something that's kind of basic. I'm going to put on the screen here, this is not available in the LiveBinder. Again, anything that I'm showing you that isn't available there, that you would like, please let me know, I can upload it to the LiveBinder. On the screen at the moment is just a picture of a Tactile Town set with a very basic layout of buildings. We have some students who are able to-- students or learners interchangeably. A student who is 22 or an adult, it could be a child who is much younger in elementary school or preschool, anything in between. We have learners of all different ability and cognitive levels. Some people, at any age or ability level, seem to innately have the ability to understand map information and orientation information and map space. And others do not. And so we have to start from where that learner is at. And so this is just, again, a photograph of the-- let's see, there's seven buildings on the felt board here. The difference between this type of representation and a tactile map is that a tactile map is more of a two dimensional image where this type of model provides a three dimensional representation. And this might be easier to start to initially understand taking physical space into a workable space that's-- at this point it's not really map space. It's more like model space. Because it is three dimensional, raised above the surface, different than in a tactile sense of being raised above a surface. Students can actually place their entire hand over that model. Understand that they have maybe a small building in the center, larger buildings to the right, to the left, above and below. Even though orientation or conceptual words for above and below, understanding that above at this point means stretching your arm out further in front of you and below means closer to you. Those types of concepts for many learners need to begin in physical three dimensional view so that they have a greater understanding of the connection. Once a student is able to do that, then we can transition into very basic forms of tactile maps. So that when we get to something more complex, I'm going to bring something a little more complex up on the screen. These are just some tactile map examples that we will talk about today. All right. I'm going to shrink this up so it fits appropriately on the screen. This is an example of a floor plan for a hotel building, for instance, where there's a conference, that includes stairs, includes elevators, includes doorways, includes Braille. This is going to be very different in understanding that information. Especially because now we have a map key on the right hand side giving us information in Braille to help us understand the symbols. The user of this map has to be able to understand the difference between which part of the map represents the floor plan, which part of the map represents the map key. So that's one area to start is to evaluate what the needs are of the map user, what your needs are as an orientation and mobility specialist using it. Sometimes it will be that you are finding out what that student has in terms of skill development that's needed and you will just maps in order to address that. Sometimes there is an orientation need and we're making the map to match that need. So it depends on the purpose of the map, as well as the map user, what type of map we're going to use at that point. So I'm going to jump back over to our LiveBinder momentarily. And review some of these examples and then we will dig into using them and begin creating some maps. So there's some documents here, excuse me, that provide information, if you are accessing the LiveBinder and you touch on an item or select an item and nothing comes on the page, you can select the URL that's displayed and it will take you to the actual website. This is just a Paths to Literacy post on creating a tactile map. This particular map, well, maps can be made out of many, many different kinds of materials. Much of what we're going to be talking about today is based on using some I'm going to say fairly modern technology. Although it's been around for a while, called Swell paper and a fuser, that allows us to use a computer program to create the map, which can then be easily edited or changed. Running that paper through then a fuser to emboss that image so it becomes readable. Excuse me. Hopefully I'll be able to breathe through this. [Coughing]. Chapter 2. BANA Guidelines Okay. Let's see. Tactile graphics from BANA. The Braille Authority of North America-- excuse me-- has their tactile graphics guidelines and the section that relates to orientation and mobility is actually unit 8, and so I'm going to-- to show that unit momentarily, but I'm going to start with something that comes just before that. Which is the bus routes, I apologize, my voice is disappearing. Hopefully I'll be able to make it through the end of the webinar here with a little bit of voice. So I'm going to give you a moment to look at the screen while I try to catch my voice back. So this is an example of-- of what a-- what a bus route might look like. When we take that page under the next, we have-- we have the representation how that might look in Braille or in a tactile sense we have straight lines, circles with different Braille labels, we have some arrows indicating direction, we have dash lines as well as solid lines. So there is a key, just above that, to explain what those represent. Again, thinking in terms of the-- of the print map, I'm going to go back up to the print map momentarily. This is giving us some of the information. We have a bold line. We have-- we have a dash line. In the Braille we're not able to use colors to differentiate. And so we have to find other ways of differentiating the information. So we have some circles that are solid ring circles, some that are dashed ring circles. We have some-- icons that are shaped with a square or a rectangular box. Each of these has information that has to be identified from other information on the same page. These are available either on the LiveBinder or go directly to the BANA website to download the standards for tactile graphics. Provides terrific information for preparing tactile graphics, which includes orientation and mobility. Again, just a resource for guidelines in creating tactile maps. This is again a section of the BANA guidelines, specifically for orientation and mobility. I'm going to scroll through slowly. We have-- excuse me-- map designer requirements, content decisions, rough maps, mobility maps, a little bit further, we talk about map size and scale, and-- excuse me-- we're going to have some different types of paper or scale that we're going to talk about. Many of the maps that we'll be showing are based on 11 by 17. Sometimes called, excuse me, tabloid paper. I seem to be having-- [Coughing] an allergic reaction to air today. Sorry. Okay. So I'm going to read a part that's on the screen at the moment. Unit 8, Section 8 5. Thank you. I've just been told we can take a minute for me to get my voice back. So-- so if I collapse on the floor, we might need to do that. Maybe it's better if I try that first. Chris: Okay, back in action, hopefully I won't pass out. Luckily I know the media team is here with a defibrillator if necessary. Apologize again for coughing in everyone's ear, I'll keep trying. Again, we're returning to the BANA tactile graphics guidelines, unit 8, it has very helpful information in terms of scale and amount of information. So I'm going to-- read this part real quick. Limitations of the haptic system of perception, as well as perception with impaired vision, make consistency and scale throughout an entire map very difficult. Symbols closer together than 1/8 of an inch or 3 millimeter tend to be perceived as a single symbol. Again, if things are too close together, the finger won't perceive them. So imagine that-- that I guess it's been described just as someone with retinitis pigmentosa only has a straw view, that's what people are seeing as they go around the map. It's a straw view because we just have the fingertip to provide that information. If you put those things too close together, for instance two buildings with their edges too close together, it will appear as one extra large building than two buildings side by side. Symbols of the same type, for example, field circles, must vary from one another in size by 25 to 30% to be perceived as different in size. Excuse me, by most users. So there's some people who have the ability to be very perceptive in some of those very subtle changes to discern when there's been a change, but for most people that 25 to 30% difference, so if you are using two symbols to represent let's say a woman's restroom by a small circle, men's restroom by a medium circle and family restroom by a large circle, those circles need to be significantly different in shape in order to be discerned. Let's see. I'm going to jump now back to-- back to the LiveBinder. So this is again available for download, either from the BANA website or from the LiveBinder. One of the areas that we'll be talking about is putting Braille as an alternative text format or as an alternative format into the document and the next item in the-- in the table of contents here, tactile maps, is a swell Braille front. You can download that from the TSBVI website. You can then enter that into your computer. I happen to be using a Mac. Even though this is under windows font. You can download the Braille font. That's a subheading there. This Braille Swell will create the swale font on your computer so that you have that to be able to use for typing. The way that we use the keyboard is a little bit different. Because there's some symbols that need to be entered in different ways. If I use for instance the No. 1, it would enter it more as a drop number. If you want to use the number symbol, to enter a 1, I would do the number symbol with an A. There are kind of we'll say Braille cheat sheets available for lack of a better way to put that to use to help you along with that. We will give you examples as we get into creating and editing the maps. I had mentioned Pat van Geem before. I am auto going to jump to creating vector line drawing tactile maps and vector line sounds very scientific and fancy and I'm sure that there are lots of things in vector line drawing applications and-- and designs that can be very technical, but you can also use it in a very simple way to create some terrific maps. So this presentation from 2015 that Pat van Geem and Ryan [indiscernible] conducted is very helpful and has lots of resources, and I'm just going to scroll through this quickly to give you an idea. It gives you some examples again of the university of Oregon information. Which we'll be talking about. It gives you-- this is the symbol set. So we have point features, things on a map that are specific to one place like an entrance to a building, then we have line features and anyplace there's a line it could be a street, could be a pathway, it could be train tracks. Then we have area features, large, open areas in a park for instance we're going to have the parking lot is one large area, then we're going to have the grass area, another part we're going to have a pathway that goes through it, so it's a combination then of those different area features along with the line features and you might have a restroom or a bath house that's within the park or the pool area and that would be your point feature. These symbols from the University of Oregon, they did some research to find out which symbols would be most discernible by people who are blind and visually impaired. And this is basically what they came up with. So beginning to use this symbol set will help to-- to make sure that-- that standardization, if a-- if a learner is working with you and you create a map and then they go to work with someone else and they are using the same symbol set, they would understand, for instance, I'm just going to use a line feature of a fence, what the fence is represented by it's symbol set, just as we would on a print map. Certain symbol sets that have been accepted through the USGS and different map production or map authorities. I'm going to switch over for a moment to a tactile map as an example. I'm going to make it-- we're going to start with something simple. This is-- not a map of an outdoor area, but a map of an indoor area. This is a map of a weight room where there's different types of equipment. There are free weights, there are Nautilus types of equipment. Treadmills, elliptical machines, you could print this on swell paper, run it through the fuser, have at least a layout. What we don't have for someone who is non visual would be the Braille that would allow them to access that information. So we can take this same map and add Braille to it -- I'm going to open that file. And now we have both the Braille as well as the print. So we have the-- we have the map of the-- weight room area on the left. And on the right hand side we have the key. Excuse me this map combines both the large print along with the Braille so that we have a dual access map. One map for both sets of users, you can also do it where you have one map that's Braille and one map that's large print. Really, again, determined by what the needs are of those that are users of the map information. Sometimes it's limited by what we can enter in print compared to what we can enter in Braille, because we can make small format fonts for print. But we can't make small format font for Braille. So we're limited in terms of scale for what we can do with-- with the Braille. And I'm going to-- for a moment-- excuse me, switch to Microsoft Word. I'm just going to open a new document. And I'm using a Mac and it might look different if you use Microsoft Word on a PC. But hopefully this will be basic enough that you will understand for the most part if-- if you are using the art options that you have available on Microsoft Word, you can use different shapes. You can enter circles with basic shapes, you can-- you can-- also have some shapes that are lines. As we talked about in our different types of symbols. We've got line features, point features, area features, excuse me. Basically any type of basic art program would allow you to make shapes. Those shapes, when run through a laser printer on to swell paper would allow you then to have that beginning of a tactile map, the only thing left to do after you print it on that is so run it through the fuser. So, this is one way that you can do that. You can also use something that-- this is just one example on a Mac of an app that can be purchased through the Mac app store. But there are apps that are available for PCs. There are free apps that are available for both. This is a vector line drawing program. This is an app that's called graphic. So, basically what I can do in this case, I can change the canvas size to match the format of my paper, if I'm using the large format paper, I would be using inches, I'm just going to use 11 by 17. At that point I'm going to make it be in landscape mode, 17 inches wide, 11 inches high. I have my-- my basic canvas. From that I can begin to draw things. Just as in the Microsoft Word, I can draw different shapes. I did change the-- I can change the thickness of the line. The line weight is over on the right hand side, at the moment it's one point. If I change that to five now that gets thicker. This could represent a building. It could represent a box. It could represent a desk. It could represent all sorts of different things based on the scale of the map. So-- so I'm going to start with just a simple example. I'm going to remove that for the moment and let's say we're going to make a map of a student's room. We probably start with something like their bed. Draw a basic rectangle. I'm going to make the line thicker. Then I might draw their dresser, another rectangle for their dresser. Or their nightstand. Could be either one. We will say it's their dresser. Then we will probably want some indication of where the door is so maybe I will make that a line to indicate where the door is. This might be as complex as that student needs to begin with to understand that when they walk in the door, they walk forward to find their dresser, they turn right to find their bed. At that point we might add in other features. A window, a closet. This is just the scale of the student's room. We haven't gotten to the layout of a large campus or even a building. We are just considering one room. When we can help that student to begin to develop in a familiar area, and they have that skill to understand map space, and the relation of items on that map, he we can help them to transition to something that's more complex that covers a larger surface area and the scale increases exponentially. I'm going to switch to something a little more complex just to give an example of that. Chapter 3. Sample Map Construction So-- so we've looked at a couple of examples. And let's say, for instance, that you were being asked to create a map of a-- a student is participating in their-- in some type of musical program at the school, like band or choir. And they are going to be going out of town to visit a hotel where there will be a competition. Like the Texas Music Educators Association. They will be traveling there and they would like some information about the layout. Print maps are being made available to other students and other student in this case needs to have a tactile example. What we could do is we could get the floor plan. Sometimes the floor plan will look-- I'm going to find an example here. This is just a page from a hotel where this might be the map that all of the students are given from the band director, the choir conductor, so on, so forth. And how do we take this information and make it accessible? We have again a print page, it doesn't have any Braille. It's not tactile in any way. Even if we use an app like [indiscernible] FBReader or Microsoft seeing AI, it could read the words but there wouldn't be any connection with how they're oriented in regard to one another. So the challenge at this point becomes how do I take this information and put it into something else. I could take Microsoft Word, I'm just going to put the map on one side of the page and I'm going to bring up Microsoft Word on the other side. And ... I could begin to free hand draw some of this into-- let's see ... free hand draw into the picture the outline of this particular facility. That would be-- probably take me quite a bit of time to be able to do that because I'm drawing basically one thing after another. I have a basic box, I'm going to draw-- whoops. I'm going to draw the basic outline. Of some of the angles would get a little tough. And it's going to take me a little bit of time. A way to do this a little more easily is to basically take a picture of this space, and insert it into that vector line drawing program and trace it. So I could follow the same lines that are provided. So in order to do that, I would need to take a screen shot of that map. So that I could copy it into something else. So on a Mac, there are different key commands that you can use to take a screen shot. Windows, same idea. I'm going to just give you-- you can also use, I will make it simple here. You can also use an app that does a capture of different areas. This one is called Snagit. There are lots of different apps that you can use to do that. Basically it allows me with the cross hairs to select the area that I would like to have copied and when I release, it gives me options for either taking a video or taking a picture, so on and so forth. I'm just going to capture that image and it saves just that image. Now I have that image that doesn't include the other part of the details, with room size and how many chairs we can fit in it. But all we're going to adapt at the moment is just the map. So I can take this now and take the image that's created and make it into a PDF, or what's called a png, portable network graphic. I'm just going to for the moment-- I'm going to save it to my download folder. From my downloads folder, I can open it or I can just drag it to my graphic program, whoops. That was Adobe Connect, sorry. And now I have it in my graphics program. What I can do at this point is I can begin to trace over the top of it. Okay. So I'm just going to close this for a moment and make this a little easier at the beginning and I'm going to give us a new file. Again, we're going to choose or canvas size. So that you can understand some of the background here. I'm going to modify that to make it 11 by 17. The swell paper from-- from the formats that you can order online are typically going to be coming in-- excuse me, 8 and a half by 11 or 11 by 17. You can always cut the 11 by 17 in half to get your 8 and a half by 11. The 11 by 17 is a format that you can basically stretch two hands across if you spread your fingers out and put your thumbs together, that's about the span that-- that that map would be in. For-- we'll say for adult sized hands or young person as in an 18, 17, 18 to 22 year old. I'm going to grab that image again. I could insert it, but I'm going to drag it to keep it simple. Now, when I bring it here, I plop it on top, I can readjust the size to fill that screen. And I don't know why I have a duplicate image there, but I will create that one in just a second. So at this point it's a good idea to save it. We could just call it hotel map. I'm going to close it and hopefully get the fresh image. There we go. I'm not sure why that's coming up on the screen so-- some things may be behaving a little bit differently because I'm guessing maybe sharing the screen through Adobe Connect, we are going to hopefully pretend that the other small icon of the map isn't really there for the moment. I think that you all can basically get the idea that we have copied that map there. Now, going back to graphic, if I choose to-- to trace those lines, all that I have to do is choose my line tool, and it allows me then to trace over what the map has already provided. I'm just going to make it extra bold so that you can see where those lines are that I have already drawn. I wouldn't necessarily want to print it like that because it would make the lines too large. Especially when we get things in like the Braille. Basically what I can do is trace over every line that's here, much easier than trying to guess where the lines should go in relation to the others. When it make that disappear, all that I have will remaining are the lines that I have traced on and drawn. Again, I'm not quite sure why the map at the top is still there. But this will give you some idea of how we can begin to create by tracing the layout that we need to start with. If I have-- if I have lines that I'm not drawing straight, it will allow me to go in and edit them so I can zoom in, choose the line that I want to straighten and I have now-- now a connecting line with two squares. When I drag the square, it allows me to realign that box so I can draw it into alignment with the other lines nearby. Okay? And basically all that I'm doing is connect the dot. There are some rooms that-- that may open or close through use of an air wall. This is an example here. I'm going to make the line that is dividing the grand balance room into a dashed line to indicate that that's something that could be open or could be closed based on the activity. If in our example the-- the band is going to be in a room that's-- that's taking up the entire grand ballroom, that would be open. If during one portion of the day, the wind section would be in salon E of the grand ballroom and the string section in one side, the wind section in another, they might have that divided. So in this particular program, it gives us options for changing our line. We can use-- I'm going to give you some examples here. This is one type of dash line. This is another type of dash line. Because our scale is smaller, we're not going to see the effects of that dashed line unless we use a very small dash line. And by using something like this, I can represent the difference between a solid wall or a moveable wall. I'm going to go ahead and just remove the underlying map for the moment. So that you will get a sense of-- what we have left when we take away the map from the hotel. If I want to place it back, I can check to see where I haven't filled things out and where things still need to be completed. So I can continue the process by adding lines, changing thickness through whatever would be-- generally I'm using five point. A five point line. Where there's a doorway, I can leave an opening to it will kind of intuitively indicate that the wall isn't present there. Which typically if you went to a hotel, what you would feel walking down the hallway. Eventually, we will want to put in names for each of these rooms. So that they can be identified. And the way that we do that is I'm going to zoom in for a moment and I should realign to make things a little bit clearer. Now, the name of these rooms is Lone Star and my guess is that with the Braille, I won't be able to fit the whole word "Lone Star" but I'm going to choose one and start there just as an example. If I choose to enter text, I'm going to use our text entry tool, I'm going to place it on the map space, at the top, it allows me to choose my font. This particular font of Swell Braille, the name is written in Braille, which will be an easy way to identify it from the list. Some programs just give you an alphabetical list without showing you what the font actually looks like. This particular font, every name of the font is shown in the style of the font itself. So because this is a Braille font, it would show you the name of the font in Braille. The size of Braille that creates legible Braille is 24 point font. So we're going to choose Swell Braille as our font and 24 point as our size. When I begin to type, L O N E, it does fit lone. And I'm going to-- for the moment move this box, just to give you a sense that it does fit each of those four letters, but as I zoom in, and let's see-- see if I can take away our map from the hotel. Those letters are very close to the edge of the line. So when we looked back on our BANA guide, I'm going to jump back over to that momentarily, and-- and-- and I'm going to quickly scroll down so I apologize in advance if I make any nauseous by scrolling. Back into our orientation and mobility section. Which is in section or unit 8. Almost there. And 8 dot 6 dot 5 gives us some of that basic information again about symbols closer together than 1/8 of an inch. When we think about how close the Braille is to the wall, it could be very difficult. This is when we make a consideration of should this be a spelled out name in Braille, should I change the size of our map, the scale of the map, or should I use a code, basically let's say in this case, LS for Lone Star. There's more that we actually have to enter because if we bring back the underlying map, basically to give you an example, these are like layers. We can peel off one layer or peel off another layer. When I add in or remove the layer of the map image that we made a copy of from the brochure, that's basically what we're using that we're tracing over and by adding that in or taking it out, gives me that sense of what's there. Lone Star II is what we would have to put. So what I could do as an alternative, since that's very close in this particular scale, is that I could change it, instead of being Lone Star spelled out, I could make it LS for Lone Star and add that to a map key, and then I could put with a number sign, II in Braille, or B, which is the letter. And if I take away our map, the underlying map so we can see that a little bit clearer, now our Braille fits more easily into the room itself, without interfering with the information about the wall. So we have a nice amount of space between the walls of the room, as well as the letters identifying the room. Now, we went through a little bit of a process to get that there, which is a little bit time consuming. If I copy that, now in the next room, which would be Lone Star I, I can paste because I've already done the work, it gives me some guidelines or a grid system to be able to align it with the text that's next to it. Now I have two places that say LS II, but I can change the second one to being LS I and now we have Lone Star I and to the left of that Lone Star III-- excuse me, II, then I could paste in another, and make that Lone Star III. So once we've done the work of one item, we can then copy and paste to another. The same is true with walls. So that this is an example. In this-- bring back our map real quick here. We have a storage room, so if I add the line to divide the storage room that's to the left of Lone Star III, I could either draw the line or, since I have matched lines between I and II, I could choose that line, copy it, and then paste in an identical line to represent the space between the storage room and Lone Star III. So, again, copying our Braille, pasting into a new place, changing just the letter that represents the room number, and make our underlying map disappear here for a moment. Now we have Lone Star I on the far right, Lone Star II in the middle, and Lone Star III. It's a process. I'm going to show you completed map of that real quick so that you get an understanding of what it can look like after you build all of these in. On this particular map, we have the-- we have the Lone Star I, Lone Star II, and Lone Star III in the top right corner. Same idea again, we started with the underlying map, we traced the lines, we zoomed in on the map just to include the areas that were needed for the conference, or for the presentation or for the-- for the music educators award, whatever it is that you are doing, then we pulled that away. We applied the labels that were in print, in Braille. If they are too big to fit, then we create a map key. In this case we had open space, so we could include the key on the map itself. Thereby only requiring one piece of paper for the map. Sometimes what we have to do is create a map with a key in a separate page because we need the entire 11 by 17 format to create the map space. I'm going to give you some other examples real quick of-- of what-- what other layouts might look like and different-- different types of-- of-- let's see. So in this particular example, we have-- we have some of our point features, which would be labeled. We have our line features, we have some straight lines, we have some curved lines, we have some lines that are dashed that represent rooms that can be open or walls that might be there, sometimes disappearing, and others, based on what's happening in that particular space. We have some places where we have some area features. So the area where the driving area is, for the vehicles, is a larger area and by using some of the kind of the fill examples, whether it's filling it in with a dot pattern, filling it in an angled line pattern, something that differentiates that area, that open space, as a unique function is applying that area description to it. Again, the Braille throughout in place of the print. On this particular map, I also include at the bottom right, we have-- because this particular map was not oriented with north at the top of the map, we can give some indication of where north is using just a basic circle with an arrow. Some type of indicator to let travelers know that north is not at the top of a map, which would typically be what we expect. Sometimes we vary the orientation of the map based on the shape of the area that we're representing, based on the scale. Where it makes the most sense. But if we are varying from north, it's very helpful to provide that information so that if an individual is using a compass, they would be able to know that the map is not oriented with north at the top of the map. Okay. And I'm going to-- I'm going to go over a couple of things here real quick. If you happen to be an Apple user, you don't have to have a separate app to take a screen shot of something. You can use some key commands, you can use shift with command 3 to do a screen shot of your entire screen. But to do a selected area, as we've done before, you would be using shift, command 4 and in this situation it gives me basically there's a pointer that just appeared, I'm going to move it to the top of the page for a moment, kind of side to side, so hopefully you will be able to notice it. If I just wanted to select an area, I click and hold and drag to the selected area. When I release, it takes the screen shot and adds it to the photos area. There are different places that you can grab that picture and drag it into another folder as we did or you can use the app. You can do just simple Google searches for how do I take a screen shot on a P.C., on a Mac, on a Linux system, whatever type of operating system you're using, or you can purchase a separate app to be able to have those screen shots available. All right. The-- the symbols that we've talked about already, and again these are available in the LiveBinder, we have-- I'm just going to review these real quick. The area features on the right, we have that parking lot, which is a solid filled in. When you run this image through a laser printer under the Swell paper, everything that's a parking lot in this scenario would be filled with the black ink. When we run that through the machine, the fuser, that would become a raised area throughout. A building would be the outline, rather than being completely filled in, that outline would be what's raised. The ground, that speckled pattern or the dot pattern as compared to a water future with the basic diamond pattern there, and a park. So those features are going to again wherever the dark ink is, that will be the raised feature of that. They are easily discernible, one from another. Our line features just to the left of that, we have streets. Of if it's a one way street, we can use the diamond, which is placed within the line. Basically to indicate the direction of the traffic flow. Our water, with the curved line, the fence with the-- I'm just going to say shorter repeating line, the railroad with the two rails, stairs or a ramp, again, just indicating in which direction the change in elevation would be, and the sidewalk with the dashed line. Again, thinking about the thickness of the line, if we compare these sidewalk lines, with the street line. They are both straight lines. They vary in thickness so the street would be a bolder, thicker line, that's one way to discern the difference. There are also varying in the street as a solid line and the sidewalk is a dashed line. So, again, helping learners to understand some of those fine details that they might miss to begin to learn how to discern between those two. It can start with-- start with simple games, it can start with simple designs. Any type of tactile information that we can encourage our learners to begin to explore helps them to develop that discerning ability for-- for changes to notice a difference basically between two things in-- on that map space or on that tactile graphic. Chapter 4. Q & A Let's see, I see from Braille is at an angle, is that typically acceptable? There are different things that you can look at for the Braille for guidelines, sometimes you have to make a determination of what's happening within your graphic. So I'm going to jump back momentarily to the layout of the weight room. Just because I believe that was where we had some Braille represented on an angle. And ... okay. So at this point, if we think about what we have to balance, we have to balance the information being conveyed by the Braille. But also by the layout of the room. So is it primary at the moment that we're learning about the Braille or is it primary at the moment that we're learning about the layout of the equipment? In order to make the Braille be oriented in the same fashion in this case, we would have to completely change the format of the room, which would override the basic orientation we're attempting to provide. We're fortunate in this scenario that most of the equipment is on a grid. There's just one piece of equipment in this case that is not oriented on a grid. It just happens to be that-- the BP or the bench press. So then how can we reorient that in this sense, much of the information is related to size. It isn't necessarily to scale by the inch, but relative size. So we have the-- the circuit training equipment that's in the middle of the room that is much larger in size than the bench press. If we were to make the bench press large enough to orient the Braille straight up and down, then it would be distorting the concept of orientation in terms of size for the rest of the map. So there are some times we get into some tricky decisions about how you can orient that information. Anyone reading a map would most often like to have that information in such a way that it would all be presented directly in line with whatever it was they were reading. The challenge is that sometimes we have unique features that would change what we're attempting to impart when we change that particular item on the map. So there are decisions that we have to weigh based on the users of the map as well as the intent of the map. And if we change the intent of the map by changing some of those features, are we able to help the individual to access the information that's originally been provided for. So sometimes it can be very challenging to make those decisions. Sometimes we're asking someone who is a Braille reader or a non visual user of that content which would be easiest for them to be able to access. And I can't remember off the top of my head, I will go back and look at our examples to see if there are other places where we had Braille on an angle. But it's a very good question. Typically, again, we can change the size of the map to be able to make it be in one fashion or another, this is another example of where Braille is on an angle. We would have to make the map larger than our paper format in order to provide this information because of the shapes of the rooms. There are certain times when we can actually use-- excuse me-- some code to add it to the key. Again, thinking about how much space it's going to take up or how much you are able to deliver is a consideration. Some of these maps were made excuse me-- in different ways-- based on the needs of the particular areas. And I-- I will search for additional information and try to include that in the LiveBinder if I can find some other reference specifically to how it's oriented whenever possible, having it in the same orientation is helpful. But if the changes the concept of what you are attempting to convey in the map, then we have defeated the purpose. Let's see ... in terms of the next question, the poll box, I believe you can close some of the pods-- you've got that one. Okay. At the moment, I'm not remembering what the BANA suggested in terms of placement of the Braille. Again, it's preferred that whenever possible the Braille be in a consistent reading fashion. And you as the map creator will have to decide if that alters the function of your map in order to do that. Excuse me. One of the considerations, again, is what information can we take from the map itself. And add to a key. I'm going to show you some examples of different map keys. So in this particular example, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 items in our map key, everything from elevators, stairs, to different room names. We were able in this particular presentation to put all of the Braille in the same orientation. Sometimes we have to put the Braille above and below. Actually now that I look at the map, there are a couple of places where it had to be oriented at a 90 degree angle. Sometimes instead of having 1 A side by side, you might have to put the 1 and then the A directly below it, so we're reading from top to bottom instead of from left to right. Whether it is using a symbol there or using a symbol in the key, and, also, how much room that you have in the key. Some people will have much greater difficulty with having to reference between the actual map back to a key that's on a separate page and then back to map space. The complexity of the map at that point might change your scale consideration. So you might choose to use a different scale based on how much additional information you are able to place on the map compared to the map key. And ... I have already looked at that one. In this particular example, we didn't have much in the key. And we also didn't have much that needed to be turned in an angle. So depending on -- on the spacing of your-- of your layout, and the map that you are starting from, so when we trace the lines, we were using the format that the hotel had given us. One of the challenges is that if you are creating a map for a place that you haven't been, you may have very limited information to be able to draw from. So that's something where sometimes we can request pictures, photographs, be sent from the hotel. Sometimes we only have a PDF of a print map to be able to work from. We want to make sure that wherever possible we are having the same representation of the print map because that's all that we have to go on in terms of representing the area in a sense that will make clear orientation information available to the map user. Okay. So-- oops. Again, in terms of scale, we have something that's basically a 400 square foot room in example. And in our other examples, we have-- we're talking in terms of several thousand square feet. Both on the 11 by 17, what we can include and what we cannot include are going to vary. We have a great level of detail that we can include from our-- from our weight room example. Because of the scale of the map, only taking up several hundred square feet. Those details have to disappear when we get to a much larger area and some of those considerations might change based on your scale. I n the BANA guidelines there are some pieces of information within the orientation and mobility section that specifically relate to considerations for your scale. I'm going to jump back over to our left again referencing from Pat van Geem's presentation, there are also some pieces of information that you can find in Pat's-- BANA guidelines again. Basic outlines that give general guidelines. Some of those questions again, are very difficult to answer, based on the environment that you are attempting to represent. And, again, I'm sorry that I don't have an exact answer for you from BANA and their guidelines. I will look, review that, see if I can find another detail and try to add that to the LiveBinder if I'm able to do so. Chapter 5. Resources Within the-- within the LiveBinder, if you are looking for-- for the map making materials that we talked about, we have the-- we have the-- the Swell paper, which you can get from American thermoform as one example. And basically anything that you want to do that you want to print again, when you run it through the fusing machine, which is basically just like a heat lamp, it will rise up so that that surface becomes tactile. For those that are looking for a little bit more of a pre done solution, within the LiveBinder, there's some information about the APH Tactile Graphic Image Library, you will need to create an account. Once you do that, you can sign into that account. And once you're in the Tactile Graphic Image Library, you can get to certain things that might be that you are looking for basic shapes. It might be that you are looking for-- just as an example-- if you chose geometry, you could get different types of shapes. There we go. Different types of shapes that you might use for things. But there's actually an orientation and mobility category. Within this orientation and mobility category, there are examples of things like a floor plan, with different point symbols. To help as a guide. There are also-- things like a compass rose that do not have to be this detailed. You could just start with north. If you were attempting to really help someone to develop their understanding of the cardinal directions, you might start with something a little bit further along. If you have a student who is into sports, you might start with just a basic to help them develop some tactile map skills, you might start with a basic layout of a court or some type of field like a baseball field, football field, something to help them to begin to orient to things that they enjoy and from that branch out to other areas that would be helpful for them to understand. There's also some basic information for street-- different types of street geometry. Okay. And we're just about to wrap up here. Again, these are just examples that you can freely download. You can copy and add these either by doing a screen shot or by plugging them in, in different ways, into some of those tactile graphic programs or excuse me into the vector line drawing programs. But, again, if you are, for instance, working on roundabouts, there's different ways that you can represent that for a student. It might be that you are using that roundabout in a bus route and having a zoom in feature so if the student is curious what the bus is doing in that area, you can create a tactile map of the bus's route and have a page where it zooms in on the part where they will be exiting the bus. I want to take a moment just to say thank you, everyone, for attending and hope that the-- that the information in the LiveBinder is helpful. Thank you, again, for your patience with my breathing at the beginning and look forward to talking with anyone soon. The please feel to email any questions. My email address Tabbc@TSBVI.edu. Thank you. [Silence] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. Fade to black.