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In an android application for blind, the user writes with his hand on the screen to give input in order to interact with application to make a call. Suppose if the user types on screen 'a' letter then it should start searching the contacts starting with letter a. Is it possible to recognize input? I want some tutorials/example programs to start with. So please provide me the resources to approach this problem.

khr055
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Kumar Raja
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  • Are you talking about handwriting recognition? That's what it sounds like you're describing... translating a series of screen strokes to letters? – Paul Sasik Feb 13 '12 at 20:43
  • yaa ,if the user writes on the screen,can we design an application to recognize it. how much it is practically possible and reliable i dont know. can u tell me about that and how much time it takes to build such an app? – Kumar Raja Feb 13 '12 at 20:47
  • Detecting hand writing is quiet difficult. I highly recommend you NOT to implement this by your own. There are several libraries out there which can help you to manage this job - but its still really hard to do. You can try to search for some OCR libraries. Most of them should work on Android too. – Basic Coder Feb 13 '12 at 20:47
  • @Copa : thanks for your suggestion. but i want to implement an app for the blind to make a call using contact (if possible send an sms),but what should be the text entry method. what is the practically possible and effective way to accomplish my task.please share ur views – Kumar Raja Feb 13 '12 at 20:50
  • @KumarRaja My mum is blind too, so I can understand your problem. Detecting hand writing is too complicated. I think it would be easier if your whole screen is a keyboard and the user puts it finger on it. Everytime he moves his finger over a letter you play a sound which tells the user that his finger is over the letter XY. When he releases his finger from the screen the letter is beeing taken. Removing the last letter can be achieved by e.g. tapping the screen twice with a very short delay. These are just the ideas going through my mind, but I think they are not that bad. – Basic Coder Feb 13 '12 at 20:59
  • @copa : thanks dude, really i am happy to ur suggestion – Kumar Raja Feb 13 '12 at 21:03

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Have a look at the Gestures overlay support in Android, as of 1.6. I've experimented with this in the past, and works pretty well. You can ship the app with a 'library' of the alphabet, perhaps drawn and verified by several different people to teach the gesture library different strokes.

Pedantic
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    Great idea! I think it would be a good idea if you implement sth. like a "learning" mode so that the blind users can draw the single chars. I think this can help to recongnize the gestures more often. – Basic Coder Feb 13 '12 at 21:06
  • +1 for a learning mode, but it might be tough to train the app if you don't have access to visual feedback. A thoroughly vetted initial library is probably better. – Pedantic Feb 14 '12 at 02:56
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Tough to do, but still possible, have a look at this question, which can link you to lots of resources to start with.

Community
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0xC0DED00D
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  • thanks for ur suggestion,I want to know how much time it can take roughly to do this and how much it will be correct? – Kumar Raja Feb 13 '12 at 21:02
  • It might take a week to develop the functionality for your app to work at least. But a serious project will take a month or more. Do not expect to have more than 70-80% accuracy (from personal experience). However I'd prefer doing it through my own algorithms, instead of using classes, as it'd be more accurate. – 0xC0DED00D Feb 14 '12 at 05:43