6. GEOMETRY
An inkprint geometrical drawing is a set of dots, lines and shapes: the
figure, accompanied by identifiers like characters, and symbols like
indicating a 90° angle etc.
Inkprint symbols are often graphical, in relief these might easily be
mistaken for 'real' parts of the drawing: so I think they had better be
replaced by braille code, or their meaning described, to avoid probably
confusing images.
Take care your identifiers are unambiguous, make sure they point at one
item only.
For ease in reading, draw lines belonging to different items or of
different meaning in different widths, like a triangle fat-lined, the
lines inside thin. Take special care of intersecting lines.
- Basic Editing in Geometry
- inkprint
(ca 35K)
- braille
(ca 80K)
In general, grid has to be copied, but don't let it get too fine-meshed,
squares with sides smaller than 1½ cm make no sense, preferably go
over 2cm. Use very thin or dotted lines for your grid. A very fine grid
could either be simplified by rendering only the even lines, have the odd
lines represented by a small dash on the axes only, or leave out the
lines altogether, and put dots at the (imaginary) intersections. (Consult
appendix Autocad on dotted lines and hatch: grid.)
- Fine Grid
(ca 65K)
Some figures carry very small details: if necessary zoom in on a separate
drawing.
For clarity, or even perceptibility, we sometimes have to make changes,
overdoing distances etc.: just as long as we don't change its meaning.
Geometry graphics sometimes sport
real-life elements: I prefer to
edit those parts,
as in general they're just there to brighten up the
picture. Occasionally a formalized form with an explanation or a
description will be necessary.
- Formalize
(ca. 80K)
You may have seen these examples in earlier chapters:
- ball projected
on screen
(ca. 60K)
- winding road with
distances given
(ca. 50K)
- giraffe and
kangaroo formalized
(ca 170K)
This also applies to drawings showing tools like scissors, plastic
triangles, rulers etc.: in general just mentioning their presence and
describing their use makes more sense than trying to reproduce their
outline.
-
-
Drawing Tools for The Sighted (ca 65K)
Replace inkprint colors by our different hatches or linetypes; don't
forget to have the text changed too.
In simple geometry open and filled dots sometimes have a specific
meaning, so copy them in a perceptible way.
Spatial geometry, or in fact its twodimensional renderings, are very hard
to the blind student, as a slanting line will not indicate a possible
change of plane to him. I think a cube or pyramid are as far as we can
go, and even in these our reader will need help, so I have a figure like
these preceded (once in a volume) by a like
figure
with an explanation as
which plane is in front, which on top etc.
- Orientation Cube
(ca 65K)
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© 1989, 2002 Marco Schuffelen All rights reserved
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Last modified: Thu May 15 10:30:29 PDT 1989