About ABC Braille
A free braille translator made by a parent, for teachers, families and anyone who needs braille translated.
Background
This site has been developed by a parent, aimed at teachers and parents who are helping kids to learn braille, and any other use cases where braille translation assistance is required. We are based in Australia and have a vision impaired daughter learning braille.
ABC Braille grew from a personal interest in computer vision and a wish to make Braille translation easier to access. I continue to develop and maintain it alongside the mobile apps.
I have also started a not for profit association called Open Braille Project Incorporated (ABN 47 895 400 826) in Australia, to support Braille-related projects.
ABC Braille on your device
For sensitive documents, use the mobile app. All recognition and translation happens on your device. The app does not collect or transmit your documents. You control any export or sharing through your device.
Support ABC Braille
ABC Braille is free to use, but keeping a small, specialised service online has real running costs. Hosting alone costs more than $1,000 each year. Donations currently cover less than 10% of those hosting costs; I pay the rest to keep the website available.
I am very grateful to everyone who has donated. Every contribution helps with these ongoing costs, and donations remain entirely optional. You can support the website through Buy Me a Coffee, Donorbox or PayPal below.
The future of website photo translation
Once the mobile app is feature complete, I may need to discontinue photo translation on the website unless a sponsor can help cover the ongoing hosting costs. The mobile app processes photos on your device, providing an alternative to server-based photo translation.
I would like to keep the web option available for people who rely on it. If you or your organisation would be interested in sponsoring the hosting, please get in touch. Your support could help keep this service available to the community.
News
- Redesigned the website's frontend and backend, improving translation tools and Braille tables. Launched the mobile app on the App Store and Google Play.
- Started closed testing of the mobile app.
- Added a new YOLO-v11 image detection model to the mobile app.
- Continued site maintenance and mobile app development.
- Added Romanian Braille and maintained the website.
Earlier updates
- Improved Japanese kanji Braille translation.
- Upgraded liblouis and added German grade 1 and grade 2 tables.
- Added Tamil grade 1 Braille.
- Began developing the mobile app.
- Marked a year of stable website operation following performance improvements.
- Established Open Braille Project Incorporated in Australia to support Braille projects.
- Fixed inconsistencies in double-sided photo translation and detection boxes.
- Improved translation speed and reliability, with double-sided photo processing and new Braille editing features.
- Added editing tools to correct photo recognition errors.
- Added the on-screen Braille keyboard.
- Introduced liblouis translation, UEB grade 2, more languages and Braille-to-text translation.
- Launched the website for testing.
Resources
- Image translation uses PyTorch machine learning to detect braille dots, with code from the Angelina Reader web app, which translates Russian and English grade 1 braille.
- Training data and models were created with the help of work by Renqiang Li, Hong Liu, Xiangdong Wan and Yueliang Qiang (arXiv:1811.10893 [cs.CV], 2018), supported and maintained by the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences: DSBI dataset on GitHub.
- Braille translation by liblouis, the open-source braille translator.
- The contraction lookup tool was inspired by the Android app Braille Contraction Lookup.
- Pharmaceutical Braille: UEB code
- Braille Authority of North America
- Australian Braille Authority
Contact
For feedback or to get in touch, email hello@abcbraille.com.