Within the project a drawing program - the HIPP program (see link Program) has been developed.  The technical development, pedagogical and methods development  accompany each other in the whole project, running from  2009 to 2012.

During the project, students and teachers contribute in the schools to develop the techniques and use them in teaching. Currently the HIPP program is used in three different schools in Sweden.

The V 1.0 Beta of the program is released. It is free to download and use.  With the HIPP program, it is possible to draw digital images and to experience them through tactile and sound feedback. The program is based on a technique which enables the tactile feeling of data-models with a special pen.

The pen is named "the PHANToM" and pushes back with the help of motors. With the pen, it is possible to follow a relief and even draw something in relief. It is also possible to add spoken explanations to the image's details or to play sound effets when they are touched.

It is possible to collaborate in a way that a person can use a normal mouse to draw and point while the pen is used to feel the tactile feedback. The developers  strive to obtain a functionnality that resembles a simple drawing program (like Paint) and that is easy to use for those who can't see.

Haptic "Round windows" are felt and spoken.

Functions of the HIPP program. When the student feels the house's window with the tactile pen in the tactile image, a spoken information or a sound effect is played.

Technical details:
The HIPP program is mainly written in C++. HIPP builds on other programs' code:

•  wxWidgets is used to have standard windows and menu system. It also handles the command stack and undo/redo system.
•   H3DAPI is used to make the connection to haptic devices such as the PHANToM.
•   Cairo is used to render the graphics in HIPP.
• Xerces-C++ is used to handle the files that HIPP reads and produces. The format of .hipp files is based on SVG ; .hipp files are XML documents.

The list continues, including Boost, ICU, libsigc++, libpng, zlib, pixman...

We previously used a closed source library to read sound files. We removed it and are now only able to use .wav files within the HIPP program. Being able to read .mp3 files is one of the numerous enhancements we are working on, along with bug fixes.For more technical details, you can go to our trac.

The program HIPP is thought to be used with a PHANToM OMNI and a screen reader, but can be used without. If you use JAWS, a script is currently needed to read aloud the text in the status bar.

Contact us for more information.