An interesting story out of Russia and in particular from the UV printer manufacturer Sun llc comes this story of how their technology is helping visually impaired people to read using their UV LED technology.
Globally, an estimated more than 161 million people are visually impaired; among them, 124 million have low vision and 37 million are blind.
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Subway map printed using UV LED technology |
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The Braille print |
The UN and UNESCO are currently undertaking two publishing projects that targets visually impaired children, they are "Illustrated Books for Small Blind Children" and "A Book for Every Visually Impaired Child". The program serves the noble purpose of involving sight-impaired children in the cultural context and expanding their ability to integrate into normal social life.
But as more than 90% of the world's visually impaired people live in low- and middle-income countries these books are usually an unrealisable dream for them.
The Sun llc Neo UV LED Evolution has made it possible to print both embossed images and Braille text.
Each Braille character is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. Visually-impaired people have to feel the letters on their finger-tips and as we know the system is widely used all over the world.
A customer of Sun llc is now using the Neo UV-LED Evolution to print large quantities of these Braille books thus avoiding the very costly methods of producing Braille print in the traditional way.
Paul Szep of Advanced Sign Supplies, local agents for Sun llc, told us that tests were originally done at the Sun manufacturing plant in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The tests were successful and via this Russian customer, books are now being produced using the UV LED technology.
Advanced Sign Supplies Pty Ltd
http://www.advancedsignsupplies.com.au
