Technical developments on BrailleSurf were frozen in 2001 !
You could visit the new projects MozBraille, a browser based on Mozilla or Libbraille, a Braille display and Braille translation library.

What is BrailleSurf 4?

BrailleSurf 4 is an Internet browser for visually impaired users, which allows a simplified reading of the information available on the Web. BrailleSurf 4 shows this information in a text form. This information can then be displayed on a braille bar, or it can be spoken out by a speech synthesiser thanks to appropriate drivers. The text can also be presented on the screen according to the needs of partially sighted people.

A further important use of BrailleSurf 4 is to allow a fast review of the accessibility level of a website for visually impaired people.

BrailleSurf 4's technical principle is to analyse the source code of the HTML pages, in order to keep only the essential information and to design an optimal layout. The graphical objects are filtered and the page is rebuilt in a textual way.

The BrailleSurf 4 browser exists in English, French and Spanish and it is compatible with Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. It allows to drive different kinds of braille displays and of speech synthesisers, through downloadable optional drivers.

BrailleSurf 4 has been developed by Emmanuel Schwarz, Gaële Hénault and Dominique Burger within the team Inova (Non Visual Interfaces and Accessibility) from the INSERM U483 at the Pierre et Marie Curie University (Paris VI).

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