Sign language interpreter

[Faisal Nouman]

hello all people
m a new member here
i want to do Sign language interpreter project as FYP
plz tell me what to do and from where i should start ?
thx

 

[barry]

I think we need more information. Do you mean you want to interpret human gestures? That sounds like a pretty formidable project. You'll need a camera, and some pretty sophisticated image processing to start.

 

[jpanhalt]

That is a very challenging project. Do you plan to go from sign to your language or from your language to sign? I think the latter would be considerably easier to do using a computer-generated figure to create the sign language.* Remember, sign is not just a word-by-word translation. It is very context dependent. A simple sign may mean many things. "Finger spelling" is not as reliant on context, it is much slower, but probably a good place to start.

Which version of sign will you use? ASL (American Sign Language) is probably the most universal. Do you know any deaf people who can help you? If not, I would strongly suggest you find someone.

John

* Learning to speak sign is easier than learning to read sign. That is unusual in that most other languages are the other way around.

 

[Faisal Nouman]

dear Mr. Barry you are absolutely right but i want to do this project by having flex sensors at fingers and an accelerometer at wrist which will send information to micro-controller and then to speaker which would translate that information into voice understandable to normal people.
but i am very confused and has no direction about from where should i start

---------- Post added at 20:51 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

well Mr. jpanhalt i don't know any of deaf person and i want to translate ASL into speach by flex sensors an accelerometer and micro-controller and a speaker

---------- Post added at 20:53 ---------- Previous post was at 20:51 ----------

well Mr. jpanhalt i don't know any of deaf person and i want to translate ASL into speach by flex sensors an accelerometer and micro-controller and a speaker

 

[jpanhalt]

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[/COLOR]well Mr. jpanhalt i don't know any of deaf person and i want to translate ASL into speach by flex sensors an accelerometer and micro-controller and a speaker

Check this link for a finger spelling dictionary: ASL Visual Dictionary Online

I am not sure what alphabet and language you want to use. Please let us know. Fingers plus wrist might be sufficient for finger spelling in English, but pay particular attention to the letters "i" and "j" as well as "x" and "z". Even finger spelling will be complex.

As mentioned, finger spelling is very slow and is not the most common method used by the deaf, but of course, all adults learn to do it. This link is to an interesting site that shows more typical use of sign and will allow you to appreciate its complexities:
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/phrases.cgi

I searched on "hand me a purple highlighter." You can easily see how complex sign can become and why it is so hard for hearing people to learn to read it. The signs can involve the whole body. Touching the chin may mean one thing; touching the forehead will mean another. It is hard to see how the sensors you propose could differentiate those two signs.

John

 

[Faisal Nouman]

Check this link for a finger spelling dictionary: ASL Visual Dictionary Online

I am not sure what alphabet and language you want to use. Please let us know. Fingers plus wrist might be sufficient for finger spelling in English, but pay particular attention to the letters "i" and "j" as well as "x" and "z". Even finger spelling will be complex.

As mentioned, finger spelling is very slow and is not the most common method used by the deaf, but of course, all adults learn to do it. This link is to an interesting site that shows more typical use of sign and will allow you to appreciate its complexities:
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/phrases.cgi

I searched on "hand me a purple highlighter." You can easily see how complex sign can become and why it is so hard for hearing people to learn to read it. The signs can involve the whole body. Touching the chin may mean one thing; touching the forehead will mean another. It is hard to see how the sensors you propose could differentiate those two signs.

John

thank you Mr. John . here is the video demonstration of this project please take a look at it
Wireless Sign language Interpreter- Demonstration.avi - YouTube
Wired Golf Glove Translates Sign Language - YouTube
i don't know from where should i start

 

[jpanhalt]

That second video was fun to review. I had seen a report about that young man before. They did not demonstrate j or z, maybe there just wasn't time.

Where to start? I guess you want to make a glove like he made. I would start my search for the sensors in the gaming world or search on "glove with sensors." Here is one of the first hits: Sensor Gloves-Fernando Kriete

There is certainly educational value in trying to replicate what the young man did with finger spelling, but I suggest you go back a few steps and ask yourself seriously what you are trying to do. If you want to invent something useful, replicating that work is not the answer. It has already been done. Moreover, there are easier and quicker ways for a deaf person to communicate with someone who is not deaf, such as texting or using a pencil and paper. If on the other hand, you just need a project to turn in, the links you get from Google should help.

John

 

[Faisal Nouman]

That second video was fun to review. I had seen a report about that young man before. They did not demonstrate j or z, maybe there just wasn't time.

Where to start? I guess you want to make a glove like he made. I would start my search for the sensors in the gaming world or search on "glove with sensors." Here is one of the first hits: Sensor Gloves-Fernando Kriete

There is certainly educational value in trying to replicate what the young man did with finger spelling, but I suggest you go back a few steps and ask yourself seriously what you are trying to do. If you want to invent something useful, replicating that work is not the answer. It has already been done. Moreover, there are easier and quicker ways for a deaf person to communicate with someone who is not deaf, such as texting or using a pencil and paper. If on the other hand, you just need a project to turn in, the links you get from Google should help.

John

yeah its necessary for me to have a project as its compulsory and i do not want to invent something new but i just want to do this project as i am doing BSc

 

[jpanhalt]

The programming part with the glove will be the key. Maybe someone has given the code for the sensor glove.

As an alternative project in the same area that does not require significant hardware, you might consider developing a PC-based teaching tool for sign. That is, an animated version of that first link that shows finger spelling would be a good first step. If you get that far and have time, then you could expand it to include some of the more complicated ASL signs like demonstrated with people in the link I gave in post #5.

I think it should be clear at this point that I find efforts to lessen the challenges presented to deaf and hearing impaired people quite rewarding. It is sometimes called "the silent disability," because the people affected by it are often able to compensate so well on their own. Children in particular may learn to lip read the parents, and their hearing impairment may not be noticed until they are past the toddler age.

Good luck.

John