Electronic textbooks for schools, tactile atlases, hybrid books, braille images and 3D models. The Library and Publishing Department at the Teiresias Centre has been creating these and other aids for educational purposes or to facilitate teaching for over 20 years.
The development of printing services for students with visual impairments began gradually at the Teiresias Centre with the purchase of two basic types of machines. “One was the Index Everest Braille printer, enabling the rapid printing of tactile text documents. The other was a simple device for creating tactile graphics, known as a fuser. It is essentially a desktop infrared heater that can transform black ink on special paper into a tactile relief in a matter of seconds. The resulting product is a tactile image with a uniform relief height, which allows a blind person to gain a spatial understanding of a particular phenomenon. Of course, care must be taken to ensure that the image is not too detailed, as tactile perception is not as precise as visual perception,” explained department head Michaela Hanousková.
Over time, further equipment was added to this basic setup, which further expanded the range of services. For example, the ability to print relief graphics with varying relief heights, thus allowing for greater graphic variability and easier tactile navigation.
Whilst the centre has been involved in standard embossed printing since its inception in 2000, it began experimenting with 3D printing around 2013, when it purchased its first 3D printer, which at the time was still made of plywood.
A team of four staff members, supported by fifteen external contributors, is currently working on the preparation of digital and tactile documents. “A large part of our output consists of creating tactile models. Among the three-dimensional models of buildings we have already created are, for example, Telč Castle, models of several Prague synagogues created for the Jewish Museum in Prague, models for the Karel Zeman Museum, a scale model of the Stiassny Villa in Brno, and St James’s Church. Creating the print file for a model, if we do not have it available from elsewhere, can take twenty-five, forty or even more hours. It depends on the complexity of the object. We start with the floor plan, for which we propose a suitable scale, and then, using construction documentation, for example, we draw the entire virtual model of the building in a 3D editor. This is then printed,” said Hanousková.
In the past, the department has created 3D puzzles for the VIDA! science centre in Brno, tactile labels for plants at the Botanical Garden in Prague, and tactile signs for the Prague and Brno zoos. “Currently AC Sparta Prague has asked us for a model of their stadium. Sparta has a large fan base, including among people with disabilities, and every month they organise tours of the stadium facilities for them. We have previously created a tactile map of the entire complex and a tactile logo for them,” explained Hanousková.
Textbooks in electronic and tactile formats
The Teiresias Centre produces study materials for MU students in tactile print, primarily for courses that use specialised technical symbols, such as mathematics or computer science, or those that include diagrams, pictures or maps – for these, tactile graphics are used.
A similar principle applies to secondary schools and grammar schools, except that language textbooks (currently mainly English, German, French and Spanish) are printed in Braille to a much greater extent. Some types of textbooks are produced in a combined format, i.e. in electronic form with a tactile supplement. These include history, geography and natural history textbooks – all the text is digital, whilst the tactile supplements contain diagrams, schematics or maps. “We print the textbooks using a technique known as ‘overprinting’, which means that standard Latin script printed on a conventional laser printer is visible beneath the Braille dots. This helps those who do not know Braille to find their way around the text. Preparing and printing a single textbook can take a month or longer. We usually print each textbook in a run of just a few copies,” explained Hanousková. She added that they collaborate with schools across the country.
Tactile tram atlas
Teiresias is also now putting UV printing technology into practice, which allows for both colour and raised printing, even on materials such as wood, plastics, glass or metal. In collaboration with colleagues from the Institute of Geography at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, TyfloCentrum Brno and the Brno Public Transport Authority (DPMB), it recently used this technology to produce a Tactile Atlas of the interior layout of DPMB trams. “The atlas helps visually impaired passengers find their way around the 12 types of Brno trams. In addition to text descriptions, it contains tactile floor plans of the car interiors, mapping door types, the presence of steps, the layout of seats or door buttons. This is another important step in removing barriers in Brno’s public transport system,” explained Hanousková.
The Centre for Students with Special Needs – Teiresias specialises in supporting students with special needs at Masaryk University in Brno. Since its establishment in 2000, it has been helping people with visual, hearing and mobility impairments, as well as those with specific learning difficulties or autism spectrum disorders. It ensures that accredited courses are accessible to students with various types of disabilities across all programmes.
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