Join our product, Mike Sivill, for a free instructional webinar on the Audio Graphing Calculator.

	Get the Most out of AGC!
	Join our product expert, Mike Sivill, for this free instructional webinar on the Audio Graphing Calculator.
	March 23, 2011 12:00pm Pacific Time
	• Review basic use and navigation of AGC • Learn to plot individual points on a graph • Perform linear regression analysis
	This webinar is free and limited to the first 100 people who register.
	Register Today!

Tibbetts Awards honor projects that bring federal R&D from the lab to the market

 

Corvallis-Based ViewPlus Technologies Inc. Recognized for Exceptional Innovation

Tibbetts Awards honor projects that bring federal R&D from the lab to the market

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT
February 15, 2011	Steve Young
	541-754-4002 ext: 214

Corvallis, OR—ViewPlus Technologies Inc. today announced that it has received a Tibbetts Award from the Small Business Administration (SBA) for its accessible printing and graphics technologies. SBA presents the awards to companies and individuals that have advanced technological innovation and economic growth.

“This award represents the culmination of efforts we began after submitting for a number of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposals,” said ViewPlus Founder, Dr. John Gardner. “We have since won 15 of these grants and continue to include the SBIR Program as an important piece of our business innovation."
 
ViewPlus’ Tibbetts Award recognizes the company’s work for a series of tactile graphic embossers which print both ink and braille, several software applications based on the ViewPlus IVEO® Hands-on Learning System, and for collaborating with the American Physical Society (the world’s leading publisher of Physics literature), to make its journals fully accessible to all people, including those who are blind.

“ViewPlus has grown from approximately 15 to over 40 people since 2003 when it received it first SBIR award,” continued Gardner. “Today, thanks to the SBIR grants, ViewPlus has been able to develop really innovative products for the market, increase our sales revenue, and allowed us to grow.”

 Dr. John and Carolyn Gardner, Founders of ViewPlus, accepted the award at a ceremony this morning in Washington, DC. Afterward, they met with SBA Administrator, Karen Mills, and attended a reception at the White House.

“This is a proud day not only for ViewPlus but also for the city of Corvallis,” said Sean Greene, SBA’s Associate Administrator for Investment and Senior Adviser for Innovation. “Companies like ViewPlus represent the best in American ingenuity.”

Founded in 1996, Corvallis-based ViewPlus Technologies is an international leader in tactile graphics and braille technologies. Current ViewPlus products include the Tiger® Braille printers, IVEO Hands-on Learning System, Tiger Software Suite braille translation software, and the Audio Graphing Calculator.

	Join ViewPlus for a Free Webinar! Join our braille expert Mike Sivill for a FREE instructional webinar on the following topics: Creating Nemeth Spatial Math Equations: Learn how to create spatial Nemeth math work-sheets without the use of MathType. Multi-Language Braille Translation: Did you know you can translate up to 3 different languages at once with the Tiger Software Suite? Join the webinar to find out how! Creating Nemeth Spatial Math Equations and Multi-Language Braille Translation. Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 12:00pm PST Register Now!    Space is limited to the first 100 who register.

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	Town Hall Meeting at ATIA Orlando 2011          - Hosted by ATIA Blind/Low Vision Special Interest Group Dates: Thursday, January 27th, 12:00pm-1:00pm Location: ATIA 2011 Orlando Conference, Caribe Royale Orlando All-Suite Hotel & Convention Center, Bonaire 1/2 Room Focus: Identify today's challenges and help guide the direction of assistive technology including discussion on accessible workplace technology. This will be an open forum to discuss: • obstacles facing individual users and support professionals • resources needed for individuals' success • feedback for vendors • general discussion Please complete the form to RSVP for the BLV Town Hall Meeting This meeting welcomes all stakeholders including educators, AT Specialists, rehab professionals, workplace specialists, OTs, researchers, vendors, consumers, families and caregivers.

ViewPlus President Dr. John Gardner Featured in National Eye Institute News Article

Dr. John Gardner, the President and founder of ViewPlus Technologies Inc. was recently featured in a news article on the National Eye Institute website. The article is below.

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February 2010

Insight

Big Ideas from Small Businesses

Vision-related research by innovative thinkers

By Allyson T. Collins, M.S. NEI Science Writer/Editor

A printer that produces high-resolution graphics, which can be "viewed" through the touch of a visually impaired person; a high-resolution imaging system for doctors to examine the eyes of premature infants; and eyeglass lenses that expand the sight of people who have lost half of their vision.

"These researchers are taking great ideas and turning them into real products that people can use," Wujek says.

These are just a few of the nearly 90 projects currently funded at $14 million by the National Eye Institute, through a special grants program called Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). The NEI's Jerome Wujek, Ph.D., oversees these grants and tracks the progress of the start-up companies behind them.

"The SBIR program covers the whole waterfront, from vision assistive devices to medications to ophthalmic instruments and everything in between," Wujek says. The focus of these efforts is on product commercialization.

To achieve this, the SBIR program is structured in three phases. During Phase I, businesses are given funding for developing a prototype and determining whether a proposed product will work. Phase II funding is for the heart of the project: turning the prototype into a product and proving that it works effectively and safely. Phase III is not funded by the NEI, but is the process by which the project should be advanced enough to allow commercialization, which could include clinical testing and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

"Through SBIR grants, small businesses can move the field forward with out-of-the-box thinking," Wujek says. "These companies are taking great ideas and turning them into real products that people can use."

Gaining access to graphics

"One day, I went completely blind," says John Gardner, Ph.D.

It was in 1988, after Gardner had surgery for glaucoma--the rising eye pressure that had steadily decreased his vision. There were surgical complications, and when the bandages were removed, his world was dark.

The 48-year-old underwent additional surgeries, but his vision didn't return. "I never quit working, though," he says. "I had too much to do."

Gardner was a physics professor at Oregon State University. When he returned to his office, he used a computer screen-reader and a textbook scanner, but a crucial part of his career couldn't be translated.

"I had access to words, but I had no way to do math for my research," Gardner explains. "And an even worse problem was that I couldn't see charts or graphs." When his wife handed him a tactile picture that he should have been able to touch and describe, he thought it was two pizza pans and a lot of wires. She told him it was a bicycle.

Gardner was confident that he and his colleagues could design a technology for embossing high-quality, high-resolution graphics on paper at 20 dots per inch--the resolution that a human finger needs to "read."

One of his students achieved that goal in 1996, creating TIGER, a tactile graphics embosser technology that produces high-resolution, three-dimensional graphics. They started ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. shortly thereafter, and applied for an NEI SBIR grant in 2002 to develop a combination hardware-software program that would read onscreen graphics and translate them for visually impaired people.

Through SBIR grants, they built the IVEO Viewer, a program that works with a touchpad, so users can feel and hear information about computer graphics. They also created a printer that produces tactile copies in both ink and Braille--allowing better communication between blind and sighted people.

Gardner's group is encouraging universities and libraries to purchase the printers, so visually impaired visitors can have access to graphics, such as maps in history books.

"It is now possible for anybody who makes graphical information to provide it in a form that is automatically accessible to everybody," Gardner says.

Imaging the eyes of infants

In the early 2000s, Eric Buckland quit his job in the telecommunications industry to apply his Ph.D. in optics to life sciences.

Watch a 3D-OCT retina scan of a man who has diabetes and associated eye disease (courtesy of Bioptigen, Inc.)

"In the community of physicians, researchers, and patients, there's a degree of passion that I hadn't seen in the telecommunications space," Buckland explains. He connected with Joseph Izatt, Ph.D., who was working at Duke University on optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Similar to the way that ultrasound uses sound waves to generate images of body organs, OCT uses light waves to capture high-resolution images of living tissues. An OCT system for the eyes requires people to place their head on a chin rest and hold still for several seconds as the images are obtained. The process is painless, and the system doesn't touch the eye.

At the time, Buckland says, many routine OCT systems existed, but there were no high-performance systems for OCT-based eye research. "The research community was asking for these tools," he explains.

Buckland and Izatt co-founded Bioptigen, Inc. in 2004. They used NEI SBIR funding to develop a versatile OCT system that includes interchangeable probes for scanning different sizes of eyes and locations within the eye--from the cornea in the front to the retina in the back. The system received FDA clearance in 2006.

Researchers initially used the system's hand-held probe to image the eyes of animals. Then, they realized that they could also use it during eye surgeries and for diagnosing infants and toddlers with eye conditions, such as retinopathy of prematurity.

"There is only one other imaging instrument on the market dedicated to pediatric eye care, and no other OCT system," Buckland says.

Bioptigen's OCT system is now being used in research laboratories like the Medical College of Wisconsin, in clinical trials such as an OCT study managed by Duke University as part of the NEI-supported Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2, and in pediatric clinics like Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, among other locations.

"What the SBIR grants allow us to do is address some of the underserved areas of ophthalmology, such as pediatrics," Buckland explains. "Knowing that our system can play a role in saving the eyesight of young children is very satisfying."

Designing lenses

As a child, Karen Keeney, M.B.A., lived with her grandfather, who was legally blind.

"I became aware of visual problems on a first-hand basis," she says. Peli lens A man wears glasses with the Peli lens (courtesy of Chadwick Optical, Inc.)

As an adult, Keeney worked at American Optical, a lens company where she met her "optical mentor," John Chadwick. He showed her how to manage inventories and market products, leading her to purchase an optical laboratory in 1980.

Chadwick Optical, Inc. made traditional eyeglass lenses until the late 1990s, when corporations began to dominate the field. "With all the strength and money these big labs had, small labs like mine were doomed," she explains.

So she picked a niche market--low vision--and started designing prototype lenses. She sent drawings to researchers, including NEI-grantee Eli Peli, M.Sc., O.D., at Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

"He called me and told me, 'You have to design lenses around a problem you're trying to solve, not design lenses and fit them to a problem,'" Keeney remembers.

But he appreciated her initiative, so the two met in 2002 and sketched out the "Peli Lens." It was designed for people with hemianopia who have lost half their vision--as if someone put post-it notes over the left or right side of both eyes, Keeney explains. The condition can be caused by a stroke, trauma, or brain damage.

Peli lenses use high-powered prisms to draw some lost vision into view. They have prisms above and below a person's line of sight, so they don't interfere with normal vision, and are generally used only on the side where a person is blind, Keeney says.

Users see blurred images in the prisms. If a man wearing prisms on the left side walks toward a door, the left doorjamb will appear blurry above and below his central vision. He can then turn to see the doorjamb clearly.

"These lenses create an artificial peripheral vision," Keeney says. "The blur actually helps people detect what's real and what's shifted."

Through NEI SBIR funding, the lenses were developed and tested in a clinical trial, which found that 74 percent of patients continued to wear them after six weeks. Keeney and Peli are now testing larger prisms in another clinical trial.

"There is no training involved," Keeney says about the lenses. "People generally get the hang of it right away."

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The complete article can be found at the following URL: http://www.nei.nih.gov/eyeonnei/insight/

Visit ViewPlus at QAC Sight Village 2009

Birmingham, UK | July 14–16, 2009

Check out the latest innovations we’ve been working on! This year we will be featuring:

IVEO with DAISY EasyReader 5.0 — Make graphics accessible in DAISY!

• Bring a DAISY book to a whole new level through touch, sound, and sight
• Increase any student's learning independence
• Make learning fun and interactive

New Desktop Series — Perfect for home and office use!

• Newly redesigned braille dot
• Sleek, new design
• Tiger Technology providing the best in high-resolution tactile graphics

Emprint SpotDot — The world's only braille and color ink embosser!

• Prints braille and ink on the same page
• Precise color graphics produced by HP printing technology!
• Uses the same paper and ink cartridges as a standard inkjet printer

To learn more about these great products stop by the ViewPlus/Force Ten booth for a personal demonstration!

English
	Treffen Sie ViewPlus Europa persönlich auf Sight City 13.-15. Mai 2009 Sheraton Airport, Frankfurt

Entdecken Sie die neuesten Innovationen von ViewPlus in der Blindenschrift Technologie:
Produktionsblindenschrift Drucker Tiger Elite und Premier -Einfache Herstellung von großen Mengen Braille! Doppelseitiges Drucken in einem automatischen Arbeitsgang Solide Hardware für viele Produktionsstunden Schnelles Drucken bis zu 200 CPS
Emprint SpotDot -Der einzigste Drucker auf der Welt mit Braille und Farbe! Druckt Braille und Farbe auf die gleiche Seite Zweimal so schnell als das erste Emprint™ Modell - jetzt 50 CPS! Benutzt dasselbe Papier und die gleichen Tintenpatronen wie ein HP Inkjet Drucker
IVEO Hands-on Learning System -Verbessertes Lernen durch Sehen, Hören und Tasten! Das Lernen ist interaktiv und macht Spass Benutzen Sie bereits entwickeltes oder selbst erstelltes Lernmaterial Wandelt jedes Bild in eine Tiger Grafik um

Besuchen Sie Stand B3, Handy Tech Elektronik GmbH um die besten Produktionsblindenschrift Drucke und die Hands-on Learning Software von ViewPlus zu erleben.

Besuchen Sie Stand A8, Dräger & Lienert und erfahren Sie wie RFID und das Hands-on Learning System von IVEO kombiniert werden können um das Lernen in- und außerhalb des Klassenzimmers zu verbessern!

Besuchen Sie die Stände B3 & A8 um eine persönliche Demonstration durch einen Mitarbeiter zu ehalten und um mehr über diese großartigen Produkte zu erfahren!

Besuchen Sie unsere Website: www.viewplus.com Kontakt: dorine.intveld@viewplus.com

	ViewPlus Europe to Attend Sight City May 13-15, 2009 Sheraton Airport, Frankfurt

Discover ViewPlus’ recent innovations in braille technology including:
Tiger Elite and Premier Production Braille Embossers -High-volume braille production made easy! Automatic double-sided printing in one pass Production strength hardware built for many hours of use High speed printing up to 200 CPS
Emprint SpotDot -The world’s only braille and color ink embosser! Prints braille and ink on the same page Twice as fast as the first Emprint™ model - now 50 CPS! Uses the same paper and ink cartridges as an HP Inkjet printer
IVEO Hands-on Learning System -Enhance learning through Sight, Sound, and Touch! Make learning fun and interactive Use existing curricula or create your own with ease Convert any image into an accessible Tiger graphic

Stop by booth B3, Handy Tech Elektronik GmbH to see ViewPlus’ best in production braille printing and hands-on learning software.

Visit booth A8, Dräger & Lienert, to see how RFID and ViewPlus’ IVEO Hands-on Learning System can be combined to enhance learning both in and out of the classroom.

Visit both booths B3 & A8 to receive a personal demonstration by a ViewPlus representative and to learn more about these great products!

For more information visit: www.viewplus.com Contact: dorine.intveld@viewplus.com

Introducing Everyday Braille Solutions!

Which solution is right for you?

Choose from the following:

Beginning Braille Aide

Perfect for teachers and other professionals, this package provides everything you need to make your educational and workplace materials accessible!

Math Made Simple

The perfect combination of hardware and software to make braille math, graphs, and charts accessible to students of any level!

Inclusive Tactile Learning

This hands-on learning package makes mainstream curricula fun and interactive! The combination of sight, sound, and touch makes learning effortless for all!

Office Production Assistant

With the latest in high-volume printing technology, braille production is a breeze. Choose between three embossing options: double-sided printing, ink and braille in one pass, or both! Tiger braille and graphic production has never been easier!

• Ink and Braille Printing
• Double-Sided Printing
• Platinum Production
  (Double-sided + ink and braille printing)

All packages include:

• Tiger braille printer
• All required software and upgrades
• Warranty, repair, tutorials, and support services
• Customized on-site and online trainings
• Braille paper and ink cartridges (if applicable)

For Everyday Braille Solutions package details please visit www.viewplus.com

*Everyday Braille Solutions available in USA & Canada only.

ViewPlus at i-CREATe!

Singapore - Booth B2 April 22-26, 2009
Singapore Management University, School of Accountancy

Come see the latest in braille technology! Recent innovations include:

New Desktop Series
Perfect for home and office use!

• Newly redesigned braille dot
• Sleek new compact design
• Same Tiger Technology providing the best in high-resolution graphics

Enhanced learning through sight, sound, and touch!

• Make learning fun and interactive
• Use existing curricula or create your own
• Convert any image into an accessible Tiger graphic

The world's only braille and color ink embosser!

• Prints braille and ink on the same page
• Twice as fast as the first Emprint^TM model - now 50 CPS
• Uses the same paper and ink cartridges as an HP Inkjet printer

Elite and Premier braille embossers
High-volume braille production made easy!

• Automatic double-sided printing in one pass
• Production strength hardware built for many hours of use
• High speed printing up to 200 CPS

Visit booth B2 to receive a personal demonstration and to learn more about these great products!

Visit ViewPlus at ATIA!
Orlando, Florida January 29th-31st

ViewPlus will be showcasing:

Elite and Premire Braille Embossers
High-volume braille production made easy!

• High-speed braille along with Tiger super-high-resolution graphics.
• Automatic double-sided printing in one pass.
• Production strength hardware built for many hours of use.

IVEO Math Tutor Great addition to the IVEO Hands-On Learning System!

• Learn basic addition and subtraction using touch, sound, and sight combined for a fun and interactive experience.
• Practice at your own pace and receive instant feedback.
• Complete worksheets and tests assigned by instructor and much more!

Visit the booth to receive a personal demonstration and to learn more about these great products!

Visit booth #613

Caribe Royale All-Suites Resort & Convention Center

Show Hours

Jan 29: 10:15am - 12:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm
Jan 30: 10:15am - 12:00pm, 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Jan 31: 9:00am - 12:00pm

Enhance Your IVEO Hands-on-Learning System!

IVEO Math Tutor - Now Available for Beta Testing

The IVEO Math Tutor is a great addition to the IVEO Hands-on-Learning System that teaches using touch, sound, and sight combined, creating a fun and interactive environment for learning basic addition and subtraction. The IVEO Math Tutor has features for both teachers and students:

Teachers:

• Create your own worksheets and tests – equations are generated based on difficulty level
• Assign them to students and generate a report – assignments are scored automatically
• Track Results – an easy way to organize students and evaluate progress

Students:

• Learn addition and subtraction in a fun and interactive environment
• Practice at your own pace and receive instant feedback
• Complete worksheets and tests assigned by the teacher

Become a Beta Test User:

If you are currently an IVEO user and would like to receive a test pack contact ViewPlus.

During the beta test period all new IVEO purchases will include the materials for beta testing.

For more information on this beta testing project visit www.iveo.org.

ViewPlus Asistira TifloInnova 2008

Noticia:

ViewPlus Technologies será exhibiendo a Tifloinnova 2008 en Madrid, España, Noviembre 21-23. Por favor de pasar por el puesto y visítenos para ver las innovaciones nuevas de ViewPlus incluyendo IVEO Hands-On Learning System y el Emprint SpotDot, tinta colore, impresora de braille. Los representantes también estarán disponibles contestar cualquier pregunta que usted puede tener.

¡Esperamos verle en Madrid!

ViewPlus to Attend TifloInnova 2008

Notice:

ViewPlus technologies will be exhibiting at Tifloinnova 2008 in Madrid Spain November 21-23. Please stop by the booth to see the newest innovations ViewPlus has to offer including the IVEO Hands-On Learning System and our Emprint SpotDot, color ink, and braille embosser. Representatives will also be available to answer any questions you may have as well.

We look forward to seeing you in Madrid!

Braille Math Translation Made Easy with the Tiger Software Suite
October 23, 2008 Corvallis Oregon —

ViewPlus Technologies and Design Science announced today the release of a new update to the ViewPlus Tiger Software Suite 4 (TSS) for braille math support within Microsoft Word. The new version TSS 4.1 works with Design Science’s MathType version 5.0 or higher, allowing users to create mathematical equations within MathType and translate to braille with one touch.

The collaboration between ViewPlus and Design Science has provided users with a new option for creating custom math documents. Users who prefer to create documents within MS Word can insert equations from MathType, add desired text and graphics, and translate to braille in one easy step. Equations will appear in both braille and ink allowing sighted readers to follow along. The documents can then be embossed using a Tiger embosser for high resolution tactile output.

"TSS is another example of the fruitful cooperation between Design Science and ViewPlus. TSS makes authoring and reading documents that contain math easier than ever. Math is taught everyday in every school, and using MathType and TSS makes it easy for teachers to provide access to materials for everyone in the classroom, whether they are sighted or not," said Neil Soiffer, Senior Scientist at Design Science.

The Tiger Software Suite currently outputs to Nemeth and LaTeX, and additional math codes will be available in 2009. The braille math translator within TSS is a free update for current 4.0 users.

For more information about the Tiger Software Suite with braille math support please visit: www.viewplus.com

To learn more about MathType from Design Science, please visit: www.dessci.com

About ViewPlus Technologies
ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. is a private firm that develops and manufactures hardware and software for people with sensory disabilities, including people who are blind, people who have low vision and those who are learning disabled. For more information please visit the ViewPlus website, www.viewplus.com, email info@viewplus.com, or call 541.754.4002.

About Design Science
Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design Science develops software used by publishing professionals, educators and scientists, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office, WebEQ, MathFlow and MathPlayer, to communicate on the web and in print. For more information please visit www.dessci.com.

Kayleen Hagen
Public Affairs Coordinator
ViewPlus Technologies, Inc.
Phone:541.754.4002 x 221
kayleen.hagen@viewplus.com

Bruce Virga
Vice President, Sales
Design Science, Inc.
Phone:800.827.0685/562.432.2920
brucev@dessci.com

ViewPlus Makes Images Accessible to the Sight-Impaired (Including Computers)

By Bill Kasdorf, Vice President, Apex, and General Editor, The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing

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You may have missed one of the most intriguing new technologies to be shown at the recent SSP 30th Annual Meeting in Boston. Demonstrated in the session on accessibility opened by Rick Bowes, and part of the presentation by Bob Kelly and John Gardner on how the American Physical Society (APS) is making its content accessible to the print-disabled, it was the software at the core of ViewPlus Technologies’ IVEO system for making images—especially diagrams and graphs—accessible.

Before you say "That sounds nice, but it doesn’t apply to me," let me correct that all-too-common assumption up front. What this technology does could be of enormous benefit to all publishers whose content includes technical graphics—and the users of that content: researchers, scholars, and librarians. That includes most SSP members.

Accessible technologies suffer from an "Isn’t that wonderful, glad I don’t have to bother about it" syndrome. They’re admired but easily dismissed. Everybody agrees that it’s important to make published content accessible to people who have problems with print—the blind, people with low vision, people with learning disabilities (dyslexia in varying degrees is surprisingly common), and so forth. But we tend to think it’s somebody else’s problem, mostly an issue limited to K-12 educational publishers, for whom there are laws that mandate making instructional materials accessible and available to all who need them.

We certainly don’t tend to think of physicists first. And we don’t imagine that we are anywhere close to making content as technical as physics research accessible. But that’s exactly what APS and ViewPlus Technologies are doing. The strides they’re making are turning out to have benefits for physicists of all sorts—and, by analogy, to any publishers and consumers of images.

When most content is published digitally, the images are often neglected while the rest of the content is made more and more sophisticated. In the early days, digitization meant just scanning print pages and converting them to bitmapped images; although that is still common, it’s viewed as primitive and unacceptable to most users. The text in those pages has progressively been made more sophisticated—and more valuable. First, it was OCR’d (Optical Character Recognition) so it was searchable; then it was cleaned up and tagged with structural information (typically now in XML, ideally born digital in an XML workflow), which made it more navigable; metadata were added, and that made it more discoverable; and today, increasingly, semantic information is added to make it more meaningful, more useful, more powerful.

But all this time, the poor images usually still sat there as bitmaps—typically TIFF or JPEG files—with little metadata, no structure, no semantics, no searchability. That’s what John Gardner, CTO and founder of ViewPlus, set out to fix. (Dr. Gardner is a renowned solid-state physicist who went blind at the age of 48.)

What the ViewPlus technology does is to create image files that can be rendered in tactile form (via a tactile touchpad or printed out with an embossing printer) and also in audio (via text-to-speech technology). At the core of this technology is an image format known as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Unlike bitmapped image formats like TIFF and JPEG, SVG is an XML-based format that provides the images as vector graphics (the core of PostScript and PDF) with text and metadata in XML.

The ViewPlus technology does what Dr. Gardner referred to as the "best possible conversion" from any given image format. When the images are already in vector form (for example, as EPS files within a PostScript or PDF file), it converts them to very accessible SVGs. When dealing with the more common TIFF or JPEG files, the software detects and OCRs the text (including labels within the graphics) and does the best it can with the image file. But having done so, it enables the software—or the user—to infer information about that graphic information. In fact, the next version of the ViewPlus software will enable authoring, so that users can add descriptive information to the SVG file.

The benefits to the print-disabled user are obvious. Dr. Gardner demonstrated how a graph that was otherwise inaccessible to a print-disabled user was made meaningful: He could feel the slopes of the various lines on the graph, and as he did so, the software read labels describing the lines, including the values of datapoints, as he touched them.

The most electrifying moment of Gardner's presentation came when he pointed out how excited his sighted physicist colleagues were when they saw this demonstrated with a graphic. What the ViewPlus software had done with that image was nothing less than adding the semantics that takes it from being "dumb" to dynamic data. Imagine a whole collection of such images in which a researcher could use a computer to search for certain patterns, values, and features and do comparisons or calculations on them. This is Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Semantic Web: information that a computer can understand. Not just store, find, and deliver, but understand.

That was what got the physicists geeked. But there are benefits to publishers as well. Once an image is in SVG form, it is much easier to correct the problems that plague author-submitted graphics: wrong fonts, type too small, lines too fine, unusable colors, and so forth. SVGs are designed to render beautifully at all sizes (that’s what "scalable" means) and in all media. It’s a fundamental graphic format for the new EPUB standard for e-books, for example, and it is what cell phones use to render graphics. Plus, because they contain XML text and metadata, SVG graphics can be much better integrated with the text they accompany—and mined for other value for their publishers. In fact, Gardner found that many of his sighted colleagues preferred to have their computers "read" them information from the images in a paper so they could look at something else at the same time—perhaps an instrument in an experiment they were conducting.

ViewPlus is a great example of a technology that was originated to benefit the print-disabled but which promises to have great benefit for all of us, sighted or not.

Bill Kasdorf is vice president of Apex Content Solutions, a leading supplier of business services, data conversion, editorial, production, and support services to publishers and other organizations worldwide. A past SSP president, Bill has led seminars and spoken widely for publishing industry organizations such as SSP, the Association of American Publishers, the Association of American University Presses, Seybold Seminars, the Council of Science Editors, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, the Library of Congress, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers.

Article compliments of the Society for Scholarly Publishing

Program Helps Graduates Succeed; Mixes Business and Science Skills

With a bachelor’s degree in marine science from Texas A&M, Todd Bridgeman rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Commissioned Officer Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Stationed in Newport, Ore., he coordinated ship operations, supported research projects and helped with disaster response. But in 2006, when he was looking for a graduate school to expand his skills, he turned to OSU’s Professional Science Master’s (PSM) Program.

Joshua Mellon made the same choice. With an OSU degree in physics, Mellon became an operations specialist for a Corvallis company, ViewPlus Technologies. ViewPlus produces Braille printers and other devices for people with sight impairments. Although Mellon’s technical skills matched the company’s needs, he found himself managing a grant program, writing a business plan and tracking financial accounts. It was the PSM program that gave him the business skills he needed.

By marrying science and business, the five-year-old PSM program fills a growing demand for science savvy employees who are needed to work in the competitive environment of technology companies, government agencies and consulting firms. Bridgeman and Mellon, both of whom graduated in 2007, are two of 27 PSM graduates from OSU. More than half of them are working in high-tech or environmental consulting businesses in Oregon.

OSU’s program began in 2003 with a $500,000 Sloan Foundation grant. With additional support from the colleges of Science and Agricultural Sciences, Ursula Bechert coordinates the program and serves as vice president of the recently formed National Professional Science Master’s Association. “We’re expanding the professional tracks that students can go into, and we’re planning to offer an online graduate certificate through ecampus next fall,” Bechert said.

More than 100 Professional Science Master's programs at more than 50 universities have been established since 1997. OSU’s PSM program receives guidance from an advisory board comprising representatives from Hewlett-Packard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Associated Oregon Industries and other organizations.

Economic relevance is critical for the national program as well. The America COMPETES Act — passed by the U.S. Congress in2007 to bolster U.S. competitiveness — directs the National Science Foundation to create a clearinghouse of PSM elements and to provide grants to universities for program development. PSM students currently enroll in one of four tracks: applied biotechnology, environmental sciences, applied physics and applied systematics in botany. In addition to completing two years of coursework in their scientific discipline, students receive 19 credits of professional training in business management, communications, and research ethics, and they complete an internship in a business or government agency.

Mellon found that his business administration courses prepared him for communicating effectively with supervisors and colleagues. “Business leaders don’t want extraneous information,” he said. “They need to know what’s important, why it’s important and what to do about it."

“For me, PSM was an efficient and pragmatic choice,” said Todd Bridgeman, who did his internship with NOAA in fisheries stock assessment. “It provided the mortar which bound together the experiences gained through my career with the federal government and provided the skills required to excel in the future.”

For more information, go to www.professionalmasters.science.orst.edu.

ISU Prof Helps Develop Software for Visually Impaired

TERRE HAUTE — Indiana State University associate professor Elizabeth Jones has spent the past seven months working to make math accessible to all students.

Jones, an associate professor of mathematics and computer science, took a sabbatical for the fall and spring semesters to work as a consultant with ViewPlus Technologies, a company that creates hardware and software for the visually impaired in Corvallis, Ore.

John Gardner, a physicist who went blind as an adult, started the company to create products that would help the visually impaired overcome obstacles in the way of education. After receiving a National Science Foundation small business grant to create math software for students, he contacted Jones to serve as the math educator on the project team.

“I feel very lucky to be doing this,” Jones said, adding that it has been an “amazing” experience.

“It’s made me think a little more about how to make math available for all students,” she said.

“As a mainstream math educator, when I’m making curriculum, there are things that I just don’t think about. Now, it’s on my radar and I’ll pass it on to my students before they’re thrown into it,” she said.

Currently, many visually impaired children are taught math using an abacus, Jones said.

“We’re trying to move away from the abacus and get blind kids doing arithmetic the same way as sighted kids,” she said.

With 75 percent of visually impaired children in mainstream classrooms, Jones said it was also important to develop math programs that could be used by all students. The program they developed uses all three ways people learn: sight, hearing and touch.

Through technology, a computer provides the voice for the typed words and figures that are on a computer screen. An embosser creates printouts, with not only Braille, but also with graphics that the students can feel.

“The blind can touch it,” she said. “It can also be used by the learning disabled who can see and feel it.”

Students can take the printed page and place it on a touch pad, which is connected to the computer.

“They can touch on the printed page and the computer will voice what it is,” she said.

The developed program focuses on addition, subtraction and multiplication. Future editions will focus on division, fractions and eventually higher levels of math.

“Right now, we’re focusing on the lower levels of math,” Jones said. “If they don’t get the lower levels, they won’t be able to use high-level math.”

While the goal is to have the technology available for schools in the fall, Jones said it also could be used at home as well.

“We’ve tested it with mainstream students,” she said. “It will be tested on the visually impaired in April. We would like it to work for everyone from blind and deaf students to the gifted and talented.”

ViewPlus Makes APS Science Journals Accessible to Blind People

Corvallis, Oregon USA, Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - ViewPlus Technologies today announced an experimental project to make American Physical Society (APS) journals accessible to the blind. The project is a collaboration between APS and ViewPlus, funded by a Small Business Innovation Research grant Number R43EY018799 from the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health. The experimental project will develop streamlined procedures that are cost effective and timely, for converting current APS XML documents to the DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem) form.

DAISY is an international organization of nonprofit organizations dedicated to serving needs of people who are blind or have other severe print disabilities. Files in DAISY XML format can be read in speech or with on-line refreshable Braille displays using any of several DAISY Reader computer applications. "I am excited that the American Physical Society may be able to offer its journals in DAISY format" says Dr. George Kerscher, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium. "This new project is a tribute to the APS advanced XML publishing methods and to DAISY's development of standards that include accessibility to math and figures. By offering material in the DAISY format, the APS is opening its ranks to a whole new group of scientists with print disabilities including blindness, low vision, dyslexia or other disabilities."

DAISY's new SVG plug-in expands DAISY's capabilities, allowing ViewPlus' SVG-based IVEO system to make DAISY figures accessible by "audio/touch". Methods exist today that permit blind people to read the text portions of the APS journals. Under this grant, ViewPlus will utilize and expand their IVEO Hands-on Learning System technology to make the entire journal accessible - text as well as previously inaccessible diagrams and math. A tactile copy of the visual image will be made by printing the figure on a ViewPlus embosser or using "swell" paper. Once the tactile copy is placed on a touch-sensitive pad, a blind person may touch the tactile figure and hear text labels spoken. Titles and descriptions of graphical objects are also spoken when touched. "This project has been my dream for two decades" says Prof. John Gardner, ViewPlus Founder and President. "The technology developed through this grant will eliminate a giant hurdle for blind people who are pursuing careers in math and science."

"Currently most uses for XML MathML are to feed a composition process that result in a display of the material. Our goal is to be able to re-purpose our XML and MathML for different reading experiences. Making content available to reading by listening is potentially only one of the deliverables" says Robert Kelly, APS Director of Journal Information Systems.

Professor John Gardner is founder and president of ViewPlus and Professor Emeritus of Physics at Oregon State University. Gardner lost his sight in mid-career and quickly became widely recognized for his innovative developments for people with print disabilities as head of the Science Access Project at Oregon State University and later at ViewPlus.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. is a private firm that develops and manufactures hardware and software for people with sensory disabilities, including people who are blind, low-vision and learning disabled. For more information about ViewPlus and the IVEO Hands-on Learning System please visit the ViewPlus website, www.viewplus.com, email, info@viewplus.com, or call 541.754.4002.

Original Article (new window): http://www.viewplus.com/press/release20080116.html

Tiger Braille Software Makes it Easy

September 24, 2007 Corvallis, Oregon -- ViewPlus Technologies announced today the release of a new version of the Tiger Software Suite (TSS) - powerful braille translation software for MS Word and Excel. The new version, TSS 4.0, includes a new user interface to make braille and graphics printing on Tiger embossers even easier. TSS version 4.0 begins shipping immediately.

The newly formatted Tiger menu gives users access to all document settings in one easy-to-use location. Here users are able to save preferred braille, ink, document, and printer settings one time and reload them with the touch of a button creating greater efficiency and saving valuable time in the future.

TSS now offers one touch printing with the new quick emboss feature. When selected, this option will translate a document to braille, apply document settings, and send it to a Tiger printer in one easy step.

TSS is optimized for Tiger braille printers giving users the most readable and durable braille in the world while providing high resolution tactile graphics. One free software license is included with the purchase of a Tiger embosser.

TSS is available in multiple languages.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. is a private firm that develops and manufactures hardware and software for people with sensory disabilities, including people who are blind, people who have low vision and those who are learning disabled. For more information please visit the ViewPlus website, www.viewplus.com, email, info@viewplus.com, or call 541.754.4002.

ViewPlus donates embosser to Blindness Foundation after burglary.

When the Oral Hull Foundation was burglarized in late March 2007, the staff and volunteers of the 45 year-old organization for the blind were not only at a loss for words, but at a loss for resources.

One late March day, their groundskeeper, Greg Stadstad, arrived to find a Red Skelton picture, one of many in which Oral Hull used for auctions to raise funds for the foundation, lying on the lawn and the foundation office ransacked. Among the stolen items were work computers, accessible software programs and personal records of current and former camp attendees.

Oral Hull, which operates primarily on volunteer support, was in the midst of preparing for their next blindness camp, before discovering the devastation to their charitable organization. "The initial reaction was understandably one of disbelief and anger. One of the things that our members always felt positive about Oral Hull Park is that it offered them a safe haven. The burglary was really a wake up call.......unfortunately," said Jeff Lann, Director of the Oral Hull foundation.

With donation support, Oral Hull was able to replace some of their lost goods. However, the camp office was still in need of other aids. When Oregon-based ViewPlus Technologies got wind of the burglary, they immediately took action. "We were shocked that someone could victimize a non-profit organization that provides such wonderful and extensive services to those with visual impairments in our community," says Jeff Gardner, ViewPlus CEO. "We felt we had to get involved to offer our support."

On May 11th, 2007, ViewPlus was proud to present Oral Hull with a donation of equipment and software valued at more than $4400, including a state-of-the-art Braille printer - something Oral Hull had never before been able to afford. The foundation embraced this technology, pleased that they are now able to create accessible materials for their camp attendees and foundation members.

"We have 45 visually impaired people scheduled to come out over Memorial Day Weekend. Approximately 30 of them are new to the Oral Hull Foundation and we will have our menus and schedules available to everyone in Braille. The (ViewPlus Braille printer) is user-friendly and a great addition to Oral Hull Park", said Lann.

Oral Hull was founded in 1962 and is located 3 miles outside of Sandy, Oregon. The 23 acre foundation strives to provide a place for the blind and sighted to congregate and enjoy an accessible environment.

For more information about the Oral Hull Foundation, please visit www.oralhull.org. If you would like to make a donation, you may contact Jeff Lann at oralhull (at) teleport.com. Select this link to read the Oregonian article http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/living/1174436718204750.xml&coll=7

ViewPlus Consultant and friend, Tom Johnston, passed away April 23, 2007. This is a small tribute of our love for him.

Memorial for Tom Johnston
A Message from "the Colonies"
Submitted by Jeff Gardner

I first met Tom Johnston as he rolled into the trade show at which I was exhibiting. He had come to help me in our exhibition stand. To be quite honest, when I first met Tom, I wondered just how much help he could really be to me. Well it took me all of five minutes to shed any preconceptions I could have had about him. Right away, it was clear I was not dealing with a mere mortal, but rather someone truly unique - not because of any disability but due to the depth of his character and intellect. As it turned out, Tom's savvy for numbers was not his only talent. People were instantly drawn to Tom and I was thrilled to find I had unknowingly recruited a natural salesman into my exhibition stand.

Since that time, I have tried to find any creative way possible that ViewPlus could employ Tom in our work and capitalize on his immense talents. This wasn't always easy with Tom in the UK and ViewPlus located in the US but the extra effort to make it happen always paid off. Over the years, he has helped with sales, customer support and numerous consulting jobs. His passing leaves a massive hole in our company both in aptitude and spirit. Those people on the team who worked most closely with Tom are especially devastated.

Tom excelled as a professional but was also a good friend. It didn't take long after meeting Tom for my working relationship with him to turn into a friendship. We shared the same juvenile sense of humor so we were instant mates. Like all good buddies, we took it upon ourselves to constantly insult each other. Tom particularly liked to tell me how lucky I was to be friends with someone so much younger, better looking and more charming than I. But he said he befriended me despite all this because he was a sucker for the charm of the simple people from the place he referred to as "the Colonies".

Tom thought it was his duty on behalf of "the Motherland" to teach "the Colonists" about proper conduct. He quickly gave up trying to teach an American about manners, so we focused on sports. While I don't think I'll ever share his love for cricket and he certainly never conceded that there was anything good about baseball, we did finally agree that there could always be virtue in enjoying a lager outside while some sporting event occurred around us, so either sport was technically acceptable.

As I reflect upon times spent with my friend, the same question keeps coming to me. Why is it that someone so exceptional and inspirational should be taken from us much too early? After all, we need people like Tom to remind us about the things that are really important and rise above our pettiness and greed. Perhaps the answer is that someone this extraordinary can only be given to us for a short time. We learn what we can from them if we are lucky. They shine bright and then, like a shooting star, they are gone.

We learn from Tom that it is not about what you are given, but rather what you do with what you have. His ability to forge ahead despite all odds will forever encourage us to reach higher. We will miss Tom's humor and camaraderie. We will miss his patient manner and wisdom. In the end, we are all better people for having known him.

You will forever inspire us, Tom. We will miss you but in our hearts you will always live on.

Also read "Ode To Tom - 'I don't mind losing but I'm not giving in'"

Viewplus Technologies, Inc. featured in Federal Computer Week

Federal Computer Week recently featured ViewPlus Technologies Inc. in a story about how accessible technology changed one man's life. Thanks to Section 508 compliant products like ViewPlus' tactile embosser, Emprint, he was able to secure a job in the technology industry, something he never thought possible.

For the complete story, see Federal Computer Week's article entitled Section 508: Reconstruction in Progress.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. (Corvallis, Oregon, November 29, 2006)

Dr. John Gardner, President and Founder of ViewPlus Technologies, today announced that he will step down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. He will remain active as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and President.

The following management promotions are also being announced:

Jeff Gardner, Chief Executive Officer
Day to day management will now be passed to Jeff Gardner. Gardner is being promoted from Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Carolyn Gardner, Chief Financial Officer
The former Vice President of Operations will now take over the top fiduciary position in the company.

Jeff Howell, Director of Manufacturing
Howell is being promoted from Manufacturing Coordinator to lead the ViewPlus Manufacturing Department.

John Dion, Director of Hardware
Previously with the Hewlett Packard Inkjet Division, Dion will now use his engineering experience to manage the ViewPlus Hardware Department.

Cari Stieglitz, Director of Marketing
Formerly Marketing Coordinator, Stieglitz will now assume leadership of ViewPlus' Marketing Department.

IVEO Makes it Easy to Work with Scientific Diagrams

The ViewPlus IVEO technology is based on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and is being developed to allow scientists to publish graphics that are easy to access and understand by people with special needs. The first release of IVEO was designed to make simple graphics accessible. The paper focuses on the second release, which is being developed to facilitate improved text accessibility, linking and interactivity. It also gives a glimpse of the research being conducted to expand accessibility of quantitative data in IVEO documents by using no-speech audio.

Charts and diagrams are a vital part of the scientific discipline and other professional literature. Typically these are made accessible to people with visual impairments through word description or a tactile diagram. However, neither can do full justice to the diagram, and thus act as a hindrance in learning. The latter, though, is considered a better option, but it requires the blind students to develop an innate tactile sense which has less spatial resolution. Besides, not many blind students are familiar with it.

The IVEO facilitates accessibility of SVG graphic information for many scientific graph-, bar/pie chart-, and diagram-authoring applications that can automatically insert object titles as well as quantitative data. Other features, like the IVEO Creator, automatically structures SVG text into geometrically-associated portions that are normally semantically related. The IVEO Viewer provides access to blind people to view files and is equipped with other helpful accessibility features for people with other visual and learning disabilities.

Development of the IVEO is the result of extensive research. Besides beta testing results, a group of blind users tested the system and helped find bugs and make the software more user-friendly and robust. Also, another concern of the developers was whether the IVEO could provide access to mainstream information without extensive editing by transcribers. The alpha and beta testing clarified all their doubts.

The second release takes care of the recorded voice feature, as IVEO will be expanded to permit recordings instead of, or in addition to, the ability to use synthetic speech. A linking feature that facilitates playing digital recordings provided by links and SVG files that open audio applications in the background to play audio in different formats is defined broadly in the new release. Also, interactivity through SGV will be facilitated in the second release that will act basically as a research tool for ViewPlus and academic researchers.

The new IVEO has an improved touch-and-speak method for reading the short phrases used on diagrams. It will permit users to select regions and read the text with the keyboard just like in a word processor. The color hue or intensity, which represents quantitative information, cannot be represented accessibly in the IVEO release 1. The second release will represent the visual variable by an audio tone whose pitch changes as the user moves the mouse over the diagram.

The second release of the IVEO is equipped with better features and accessibility options for the visually impaired. It is definitely a better product in terms of design, layout and - most importantly - features than the first release.

This article was written by Dennis van der Heijden of www.axistive.com and printed on July 13th, 2006.

Exhibit for the blind sheds light on an overlooked 'civil right'

In a new exhibit launched at the Creole Gallery in Lansing MI, artist Suellen Hozman has taken a new approach to providing accessible art.

Using Tiger Technology and mainstream graphic software, Hozman has created a photographic exhibit that is not only for the sighted. The set of 27 photographs of blind and visually impared residents from the Lansing area can be enjoyed by all.

Photos and graphics printed with the Tiger Braille Embossers can have up to seven different elevations of raised dots which help convey the contours of the image. Images can be printed from any mainstream graphics applications such as Corel or Photoshop running on Microsoft Windows.

The original article was written by Lawrence Cosentino for the Lansing City Pulse and was printed on July 3rd 2006.

Braille Printer Manufacturer ViewPlus Switches to CoCreate

FORT COLLINS, Colo. and SINDELFINGEN, Germany — June 20, 2006 — CoCreate Software, Inc., a leading provider of 3rd Generation PLM software applications, today announced ViewPlus Technologies has switched to CoCreate as its 3D product development platform.

ViewPlus revolutionized Braille printing with its patented embossing technology and now leads its industry in innovation and growth. Dr. John Gardner, a solid-state physicist from Oregon State University, started the company after a failed eye surgery. Suddenly blind, Gardner quickly learned that traditional Braille printing does not accommodate the graphs and charts used everywhere in his professional community. So, he launched ViewPlus and developed a patented technology that embosses graphical information in addition to text.

The company now combines both color ink jet and embossed technologies, bridging the gap between blind and sighted individuals in schools and in the workplace. Now, everyone can read and work from a common document.

With ViewPlus Technologies coming aboard as a new customer, CoCreate continues its leadership in the printer industry, moving deeper into specialized market segments.

ViewPlus’s former CAD software proved too slow and difficult for creating 3D models. The company changed systems because it wanted to:

• stop manually reconciling the bill of materials before releasing a product to production, a process that could take up to 3 days.
• accelerate product development with tools that help engineers quickly create 3D CAD models and associated 2D drawings.
• design through exploration—instead of planning the entire design before committing it to 3D CAD.

ViewPlus evaluated both history-based and CoCreate’s history-free Dynamic Modeling™ approaches to 3D product development. CoCreate’s strengths in collaborative product development, its ability to rapidly respond to unexpected change, and affordable subscription licensing won over ViewPlus designers.

Growing companies operating in a startup mode have the same demands for enterprise class software as companies of any other size. What is more is the requirement to bring high impact tools into the company without breaking the bank. With CoCreate’s subscription licensing, companies ‘rent’ versus ‘buy’ software. This offers the purchasing flexibility to immediately access powerful 3D CAD and product development software at a much lower annual cost.

“We are a rapidly growing company. Subscription licensing lowered the upfront cost to access the CoCreate platform. We had done a multi-year financial analysis and subscription proved to be the best alternative for us,” said John Dion, ViewPlus Hardware Design Engineer.

This article was originally published on 2006-06-20 on the CoCreate website.

ViewPlus Introduces Emprint - New Braille Printer with Color HP Inkjet

Corvallis, Oregon, May 16, 2006--ViewPlus Technologies today announced the release of Emprint™, the world's first Braille printer that embosses Braille with the equivalent color ink. The ability to print Braille and ink in a single-pass will allow people with visual impairments and sighted people to communicate more effectively in the classroom and workplace.

As more Braille readers join the mainstream, the need for communication between sighted and blind people grows. Emprint™ allows Braille documents to be shared amongst sighted colleagues and teachers by printing the corresponding ink characters above or beside the Braille.

Anything that is seen on a computer screen is printed quickly in Braille and color ink, together or separately. People who are blind can print Braille for their personal use and an ink version for their sighted colleagues. Using a single printer saves them valuable workspace and money.

"With our limited resources and space, a printer that doubles as both a Braille printer and typical ink printer is the perfect solution," states Jerry Kuns, a technology coordinator at the California School for the Blind. "More than anything I like the fact that Emprint™ creates raised, color graphics usable by all our students."

People with low-vision and others who may not read Braille can also use the tactile and ink features for better comprehension of spatial material. Adding color to a raised image makes materials, like tactile maps or diagrams, more engaging for low-vision and learning disabled students. Studies have shown that a combined tactile and visual/color interface makes a stronger connection with the brain than vision alone, improving the learning process.

Emprint™ uses the familiar interface of Microsoft Office to create Braille and ink documents that can be printed in a single-pass. Braille text can be printed in a wide variety of languages. Ink text can be printed in any size, color or font the user chooses. Tactile graphics, like maps and bar charts, are printed with raised lines and color ink. The height of raised lines and objects is determined by their visual equivalent: the darker the color or shade, the higher the relief in that area.

The ink cartridges and paper used in the printer can be found at any local office supply store. The types of paper can range from normal copy paper to traditional weight Braille paper. Emprint™ retails for US$5995 and includes: printer, ink and Braille translation software. For more information or to purchase, contact your local ViewPlus distributor or contact ViewPlus directly by email, sales@viewplus.com or call 541.754.4002.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. is a private firm that develops and manufactures hardware and software for people with sensory disabilities, including people who are blind, low-vision and learning disabled. For more information please visit the ViewPlus website, www.viewplus.com, email, info@viewplus.com, or call 541.754.4002.

ViewPlus worked with Hewlett-Packard Specialty Printing Systems to incorporate color HP Inkjet into their Tiger® Braille printer line. This is the second venture into Braille and ink by ViewPlus that uses HP Inkjet cartridges inside.

ViewPlus Celebrates 10 Years of Tactile Graphics Creation at CSUN 2006

ViewPlus Technologies was founded by Dr. John Gardner in 1996. Over the past decade, the company has become synonymous with increased access to mathematical and scientific materials for individuals with visual impairments.

The IVEO is only one of ViewPlus’ many innovative products designed to make non-textual information (such as charts, graphs, maps and diagrams) accessible to people with print disabilities.

IVEO is comprised of four components:

1. IVEO Creator (a drawing program that can be used to create and edit tactile-audio documents)
   
2. IVEO Converter (a tool that allows scanned or pre-existing images to be imported into IVEO)
   
3. IVEO Touchpad (a touch-sensitive pad that is used to explore and edit tactile-audio images)
   
4. IVEO Viewer (a software application that allows IVEO documents to be read on-screen or with the IVEO touchpad).

The IVEO Viewer saves all files in Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) format. Like the Portable Document Format (PDF) file type developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., the SVG format allows an author to attach title and description attributes to graphical objects or to edit information in these labels that is incorrect or out-of-date. These attributes are not visible when the SVG graphic file is displayed in a conventional SVG viewer, but are displayed and spoken by the IVEO Viewer when they are pressed by the user or selected with the mouse.

Once an SVG file has been opened in the IVEO Viewer, a totally blind individual can use any of the ViewPlus embossers to create a tactile copy of the graphic they wish to examine. All ViewPlus printers implement Tiger ® technology (which embosses with a resolution of 20 dots per inch) and come bundled with the Tiger® Software Suite (which includes a formatter, a text-to-Braille translator and a tactile graphics design studio). Individuals with low vision or those with learning disabilities can use the Emprint Haptic Color Braille Embosser (which combines Tiger technology with Hewlett-Packard’s ink jet technology) to create a high resolution color image that can also be felt.

After the image has been embossed, it is placed on the IVEO Touchpad for the user to explore. When a component on the diagram is pressed, the computer speaks its associated label and descriptors and consolidates all verbal information into a text-only window, which the user can choose to either emboss or review on-screen. On a map of the United States, for instance, an object might be a particular state, its associated label might be the state’s name and additional descriptors might include the state’s capital city and population.

This article was written by Dena Shumila of www.axistive.com and printed on March 24th, 2006.

QAC Sight Village 2005 - Birmingham UK July 19 / 20 / 21 2005

The latest in cutting edge technology for people who are blind or partially sighted, will be on show this July in Birmingham. Celebrating its twelfth year, Queen Alexandra College’s major international exhibition of technology and services is gearing up for the best show yet.

Show sponsors, ViewPlus Technologies, from Oregon in the USA, will be showcasing their unique ‘Ink My Dots’ Braille embosser, developed in partnership with Hewlett Packard. The machine produces Braille and standard print or ink enhanced tactile graphics on one document. With the Disability Discrimination Act affecting how organisations must now provide accessible information to all their customers this product should generate a great deal of interest.

People with visual impairment have always been leaders in the use of internet technology. The concept of using Podcasts, audio files of information and entertainment, is taking off big time as more people than ever before own MP3 players.

Show organisers for QAC are Stewart Morehead and Ray Piggott. Ray says “QAC Sight Village has a major international reputation and puts Queen Alexandra College in the spotlight. This helps us in our core work of challenging discrimination by providing opportunities for people with visual impairment and other disabilities to learn, live and work independently.”

With exhibitors flying in from across the world, QAC Sight Village is the largest event of its kind in Europe. Several thousand visually impaired people from the UK and beyond will visit the show over three days to discover the very latest products and services for people with sight loss.

QAC Sight Village this year welcomes, for the first time, companies from Korea and Spain. Products include talking digital radios, accessible mobile ‘phones and Braille note takers. Ultrasonic sound and GPS navigation systems have been harnessed to provide high tech tools for independent travel. Video magnifiers and text reading equipment has developed amazingly in the past years allowing people with low vision to access written material more effectively than ever.

Alongside the technology, QAC Sight Village also welcomes the organisations that provide information, advice and support. From accessible holidays, networks of friends, talking newspapers and tactile information.

QAC Sight Village
Clarendon Suites - 2 Stirling Road Edgbaston Birmingham B16 9SB
July 19 & 20 10am – 5pm
July 21 10am – 4.30pm
Admission FREE
www.qacsightvillage.org.uk

---

Ray Piggott -- Marketing and Business Development Manager
Queen Alexandra College, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 9TG
0121 428 5050 Mobile: 0775387 0954 Email: ray@qac.ac.uk

NEW IVEO SOFTWARE MAKES PICTURES SPEAK

Corvallis Oregon May 25 2005 - ViewPlus® Technologies today announced the release of IVEO® software to add audio labels to digital images to make learning more interesting and accessible.

Websites and textbooks are loaded with images and diagrams that can be difficult to interpret by people with learning and visual disabilities. IVEO®allows pictures to be labeled with audio tags making them more interactive and inclusive for the reader.

Different components of an image can be individually labeled with speaking tags in IVEO™. By navigating with a mouse or keyboard one can hear the labels assigned to each part of a diagram or image enhancing comprehension beyond use of vision alone.

For blind people as well as sighted tactile/kinesthetic (touch) learners IVEO®has an optional hardware component called the IVEO®Touchpad. Tactile printouts can be placed on the IVEO®Touchpad to provide an alternative display of images on the computer screen. Users can then read printouts through a combination of sight and touch receiving audio feedback as they explore the image.

It can be difficult for teachers to identify their students’ subtle learning and sensory disabilities and adapt to individual learning styles. With IVEO®identification and special treatment are unnecessary since it incorporates all three learning modalities - tactile/kinesthetic auditory and visual. No matter the learning style images can be interpreted effectively by anyone using the IVEO®software and IVEO®Touchpad. Plus IVEO®makes learning more fun and interactive for all students.

It is easy to create IVEO®documents. IVEO®includes drawing writing and editing tools for making tactile/audio/visual files like speaking maps and diagrams. Images can also be imported from most Windows programs as well as from clipart or bitmaps. The IVEO®software package even includes a scanning and OCR feature for seamless importing of printed pictures and images.

“The power and versatility of IVEO®makes it the perfect addition to the classroom” says Jeff Gardner ViewPlus VP of Sales & Marketing. “Now teachers can easily create lessons that are effective for students with special needs and make learning more engaging for everyone else in the process.”

The IVEO®Creator software and IVEO®Touchpad can be purchased separately or as a discounted set. The IVEO®Viewer is also available as a free download to enable easy sharing of files made in the IVEO®Creator software. Call your local ViewPlus distributor contact ViewPlus directly (info@viewplus.com 541.754.4002) or visit the ViewPlus website (www.viewplus.com) for more details.

ViewPlus® Technologies Inc. ViewPlus Technologies Inc. is a private firm that develops and manufactures hardware and software for people with sensory disabilities including people who are blind low-vision and learning disabled. For more information please visit the ViewPlus website www.viewplus.com email info@viewplus.com or call 541.754.4002.

Printer for the Blind

For students who are blind there's often a barrier in the classroom when it comes to learning. A Corvallis, OR company is changing all that by rolling out a new printing product designed to bridge the gap.

Dr. John Gardner, CEO of ViewPlus, lost his sight nearly 20 years ago after complications from glaucoma surgery.

The former Oregon State University physics professor began experiencing the difficulties of being blind and wanted to build a printer that would emboss braille text as well as graphs and maps onto paper. Now he's adding ink to the equation.

This will really help improve communication between blind and sighted students as well as adults. Sighted people can actually see what the blind person is reading and help them with any questions, says Dr. Gardner.

The PIA or personal ink attachment clips onto the ViewPlus Pro Embosser printer and works with any Microsoft Widows application.

Even though he's blind Dr. Gardner knows his innovative vision is opening the worlds eyes to the endless learning possibilities of this technology.

That's certainly part of the reward of doing this work. We know that we're doing things that are so beneficial to so many people, says Gardner.

The company is now working on adding color to the ink as well as making a smaller desk top version for people to use at home.

This story was written and covered by KVAL 13 News on Wednesday Feburary 23rd.

Web Links:
ViewPlus Pro Embosser Ink Attachment

The original article was posted on the KVAL website at www.kval.com

ViewPlus sees big potential in adding ink to embosser that prints for the blind

With barely a week to go before the company's new product is scheduled to ship, the manufacturing department is smack in the middle of moving.

RYAN GARDNER/Gazette-Times
In ViewPlus' new space, manufacturing coordinator Jeff Howell, left, will have dedicated workstations for printer assembly. Howell and engineer Christian Herden explain how they turn a dot matrix printer into an embosser.

The old fabrication area is already cleared out, but the new one is still being set up. Employees are ferrying parts and equipment from one building to another on handcarts, and somebody dropped one of the finished units, cracking the housing.

Not that anyone seems concerned about all this chaos — that's just the price of success for ViewPlus Technologies.

In less than two years, the company has outgrown its 7,000-square-foot building in the Airport Industrial Park and recently leased an additional 1,800 square feet next door. In the coming months, ViewPlus expects to lease additional pieces of the mostly vacant 15,000-square-foot structure.

"We reckon that, over the course of the next year, we will fill that up," said company founder John Gardner, a former Oregon State University physics professor who lost his sight from complications following surgery in 1988.

Incorporated in 1999, the Corvallis company makes a line of computer printers for blind people. Like other printers for the visually impaired, the ViewPlus Embosser prints text in Braille characters using raised dots. Unlike most, however, it can also produce tactile versions of graphic images, from maps to diagrams to drawings that mimic visual shading with seven levels of depth.

The ViewPlus line has been a hit with schools, universities and other institutional customers in the United States and abroad. From three employees and $68,000 in sales that first year, the company grew to 15 employees and $900,000 in sales in 2003, when it moved from incubator space in the Business Enterprise Center to its current location. Today ViewPlus has 30 employees, and it's projecting $2.5 million in sales for 2005.

One reason for that optimism is the company's latest innovation, scheduled to start shipping next Monday.

The Pro Ink Attachment — PIA, for short — is an add-on that works with the ViewPlus Pro Embosser, the company's top-of-the-line model. Using twin Hewlett-Packard inkjet printheads, the PIA produces a single-color visual equivalent of the raised-dot image created by the embosser.

Using ViewPlus software that works with the near-universal Windows computer operating system, the PIA can be set up to overprint large text letters on top of individual Braille characters, a useful aid in teaching Braille to people with low or failing vision.

It can also print a grayscale image directly over an embossed graphic or print lines of text between lines of Braille. That capability opens up a much broader potential application: giving sighted teachers a visual analog to what their blind students are reading or writing in Braille.

"I think that's going to be the lion's share of our sales," said Rob Sanders, the company's bright-eyed young director of sales and marketing. "Blind students are mainstreamed more and more in this country — you'll have one blind student in a regular classroom."

In elementary, secondary and university classrooms across America, teachers with no specialized training often struggle to communicate effectively with blind students. Combining printing with embossing can help bridge that gap, and ViewPlus is betting the PIA will fill that niche in the marketplace.

"It serves a need in this industry that's never really been properly served," Sanders said.

ViewPlus hopes to sell 100 to 200 PIAs this year.

"That sounds like a small number, but in the Braille market, that's huge," Sanders said.

Huge is right — ViewPlus has sold just under 200 Pro Embossers to date.

But the PIA, which ViewPlus has been demonstrating at assistive technology expos, is already generating a fair amount of buzz, with $50,000 in orders booked in advance of next week's target launch date. Sanders is hoping the add-on will prove so popular it will boost sales of the embosser.

"I think this will sell a lot more Pros," he said. "No one solves the ink and Braille problem like we do, and that's the biggest problem out there."

If Sanders is right, Gardner says, the rapid growth of ViewPlus can continue.

"As the company's revenues grow, we can expand, put more marketing people in the field and sell more products," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year we have 50 employees."

This article was written by Bennett Hall and published on Feburary 20th in the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.

Oregon companies searching for a European connection

If you think all computer printers churning out Braille documents only can make simple rows of letters, pages run through ViewPlus Technologies' machines may surprise you.

ANDREA J. WRIGHT | STATESMAN JOURNAL
Senior engineer Christian Herden (right) and assembler Patrick Baily build braille printers Wednesday at ViewPlus Technologies in Corvallis. Braille printers made by ViewPlus Technologies are being sold in European markets, as well as in the United States.

Bar charts, diagrams of the eye's anatomy and maps of the floor plan of a conference in Los Angeles all are here, made of patches of bumps.

For a sighted person, the Corvallis company's printed pages seem strikingly visual, like low-relief friezes. For a blind person, the printers create textures to provide detailed representations of computer graphics. Different dot heights, for example, mimic different colors in a chart.

But this 30-person company that works with giants such as Hewlett-Packard faces a major challenge:

Most people have little use for expensive Braille machines.

Selling to a small niche has spurred the firm to do as many other Oregon companies and expand to Europe, said Jeff Gardner, the company's vice president of marketing. Last year, about 80 percent, or $700,000, of the firm's overseas sales were made to European countries.

Although Asia remains the main overseas destination for Oregon products, some people say that exports to Europe are increasing. The weak dollar has spiked many small companies' hopes of tapping Europe's large consumer market.

"We're taking advantage of the dollar being in the situation it's in," Gardner said. "People are getting our products for a lot less."

Each year, about $2 billion of the more than $10 billion in products that Oregon exports to other countries goes to Europe, said Craig Burk of the Oregon Economic & Community Development Department. The number has remained more-or-less steady for about four years, he said, and is an estimate of the state's exports, because it counts all products shipped out of state.

Exporting to Europe isn't a smart move for every company, said Burk, who advises companies about how to approach possible expansion on that continent.

"We basically talk them through the dos and don'ts," Burk said. "We look at the feasibility of the market. We tell them: 'You can have five different competitors in Europe. Do you have a unique product that can compete effectively? Because you have to pay for shipping it from here.'

"There's a lot of that reality check."

There are other problems, too, including finding reliable distributors for each country. Distributors often must be able to provide translation services or other technical support.

Other problems include paying for duties, certifying electronics and toys and choosing the right colors and tone for users guides of products in each locale. Germans, for example prefer more technical language than Americans.

But, Burk said, more Oregon firms are overcoming the hurdles that can make success in Europe challenging.

...

The business of braille

In Corvallis, ViewPlus Technologies began selling to Europe in 1999, as soon as it had a product. It works with TallyGenicom, building specialized braille hardware on top of that company's printers.

Today, more than half of ViewPlus' sales are overseas. About 80 percent of sales, or $750,000 last year, are to Europe, compared to about 15 percent to Asia. Sales to Europe have been doubling on a yearly basis.

To solve language issues, the firm's engineers work with Oregon State University experts. Distributors also help localize its software, "so if you sell something to Germany, it doesn't speak English on their computer," Gardner said.

One concern for the company is transporting people, products and equipment. To attend a trade show in England, they may have to pay a value-added tax of about 17 percent for shipping display products.

"If I insure my package for a couple thousand dollars, I end up paying a nice bit for things I'm not even selling," Gardner said.

Fortunately, the company does not travel the road to Europe alone. Partnerships with large companies such as TallyGenicom have helped them learn about regulation, including securing European conformity approval.

And duties for products often are managed by distributors:

"You just have to go to trade shows and get them excited, and they help you with the rest," Gardner said.

Other costs for ViewPlus include its manufacturing representative in Europe, who works with distributors. And about ten times per year, it pays for sending Oregon employees to Europe.

...

Future growth

Burk, the European trade expert for the state's Economic & Community Development Department, increasingly hears anecdotal evidence of smaller companies shipping to more European countries.

"All of the companies I've talked to said the weak dollar makes a difference," he said. "But I probably heard more of the downside, when the dollar was high."

Oregon firms must realize that Europe has different ways of doing business.

American firms often need technical support from distributors, such as someone to translate software or user documents.

"A lot of times, (that) takes a lot longer than an Oregon company would like," or is used to, Burk said.

There are other issues as well: Europeans generally don't like bright colors in user guides and other materials. Small touches, such as using British addresses instead of U.S. addresses in those materials, can be important. Using a competitor's name in an advertisement can be prohibited. One faux-pas in business discussions is immediately talking about money issues, such as discounts or payments.

But if small companies can overcome these obstacles, now could be a good time to expand to Europe.

When the dollar was high, "larger companies like Nike do foreign sourcing, so they can save that way," Burk said. "But for companies that had a boxed-up product that they were sending to Europe, the high dollar did make a difference when competing with European suppliers."

Web Links:
ViewPlus Pro Embosser Ink Attachment

This article was written by Toby Manthey and published in the January 30th 2005 Statesman Journal. The author can be contacted at (503) 399-6737.

ViewPlus President Awarded for Service to Blind Scientists

The Western Law Center for Disability Rights in Los Angeles is presenting an award to Dr. John Gardner, Professor at Oregon State University and Founder of ViewPlus Technologies, Corvallis, OR, for his service to blind scientists. The presentation is to be made on the evening of November 9. They have also asked him to give a presentation that afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00 PM about ViewPlus' technologies and what they mean to blind people. ViewPlus Technologies is the developer of the Tiger Graphics Embosser and some exciting new products.

There is limited seating available for those who would be interested in attending Dr. Gardner's afternoon presentation. RSVPs must be received by November 4th to Anabel Prudencio, 213.736.8195, or email anabel.prudencio@lls.edu.

Dr. Gardner will briefly describe the reasons that led to the founding of ViewPlus and its development from a one-room business startup in 1999 to a multimillion dollar company today. He will demonstrate the sequence of technologies that ViewPlus has developed, including the ViewPlus tactile graphics and Braille embossers, currently the company's major product line. ViewPlus embossers were developed in his lab at Oregon State University and is exclusively licensed by Oregon State to ViewPlus. ViewPlus has developed an impressive list of supporting software making it easy for anybody who knows how to use a computer to create Braille plus tactile graphics documents. ViewPlus is poised to become a mainstream company with its new IVEO technology making it easy to create graphical information that is usable by blind people. Dr. Gardner will demonstrate IVEO and show why Tiger technology was a critical first step before IVEO could even be possible. ViewPlus has always had an end goal in sight - technologies making it easy to create information that is universally accessible. For more information on ViewPlus, see www.ViewPlus.com

Inkjet revolution

Frank Cloutier does a frighteningly good imitation of a dot-matrix printer. It involves a lot of rapid-fire noise and a sweeping back-and-forth motion of the entire upper body, something like a heavy machine gun spitting out .50-caliber slugs.

"Can you imagine what offices would be like today," he asks, "if we had hundreds of those printers going?"

In case you're too young to remember, dot-matrix was the dominant printer technology in the early days of desktop computing. Also called serial impact printers, the clattering devices used metal pins to hammer out text, one letter at a time, onto endless accordion-folded reams of perforated computer paper. Users had little or no control over typeface or character size, and graphic images were not an option.

Dot-matrix printers were big, clunky and, above all, loud. While today's office environment is crowded with printers, the laser and inkjet technology prevalent now is far more sophisticated, efficient, versatile --- and blessedly quiet.

To a large extent, you can thank Frank Cloutier for that. The inkjet printer revolution began 20 years ago, right here in Corvallis, with a small team of engineers under Cloutier's supervision at Hewlett-Packard Co.'s local campus.

And remarkably, even though inkjet technology has come a long way since then, their original invention is still in widespread use.

St. Helens erupts

Building on a breakthrough by HP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., that used heat to force tiny droplets of liquid through a hole, "Cloutier's Crazies" created the first commercially viable desktop inkjet printer.

The product debuted in 1984 as the HP ThinkJet. Over the next 20 years, it changed the entire industry.

Dot-matrix printers, though not extinct, have faded into the background of the office landscape, while inkjets have become the dominant species of printer in the desktop publishing age.

The heart of the original ThinkJet was the printhead, which wedded ink-aiming computer circuitry to a set of nozzles (the jets) and packaged them with the ink cartridge itself.

The first inkjet printhead was codenamed St. Helens, after the volcano that was so much on the minds of Oregonians in the early '80s.

"St. Helens was something that got hot and spit things out, so there you are," Cloutier said in a recent interview.

The St. Helens had just 12 nozzles for spraying ink. It could produce a maximum image resolution of 96 dots per inch, or not quite as sharp as the type and pictures in this newspaper.

One current HP printhead, model No. 96, has 672 ultrafine nozzles that are capable of producing images of up to 1,200 dpi. That level of quality leapfrogs newspapers and even glossy magazines to rival the finest photographic prints. In fact, if you ask Cloutier, it's superior to prints.

"We got better than magazines several years ago," he said. "Then the question became can we do better than silver halide, and the answer today is yes."

Finding new life

But that doesn't mean the St. Helens is obsolete -- far from it. Sales of the 20-year-old printhead model are nearly as strong today as they've ever been, with scores of manufacturers using it in a host of applications that its HP designers may never even have dreamed of.

Its low cost -- $13.95 for a black St. Helens cartridge versus $70.99 for a black model 12 printhead -- and rugged simplicity make it ideal for a wide range of applications where high reliability is more important than high resolution.

St. Helens printheads -- also known as pens -- are used to print everything from cash register receipts to ski resort lift tickets, from the time-stamped slips you get at the parking garage to the expiration dates on those little plastic thingies that hold bread bags closed.

One of the biggest markets is for automated teller machines, which need a receipt printer that will perform reliably even when exposed to the weather in an outdoor terminal.

"Our estimate is that about 80 percent of the ATMs in the world use a St. Helens pen," said Marcy Eastham, a Hewlett-Packard spokeswoman.

And entrepreneurs keep coming up with new ways to use the product. ViewPlus Technologies, a Corvallis company that makes an innovative line of raised-dot computer printers for blind users, has begun installing St. Helens pens in a new attachment for its Pro Embosser series. The attachment produces plain text and visual graphics side by side with ViewPlus's embossed images, enabling sighted teachers to see exactly what their blind students are working on.

"It does it all in one pass," said Jeff Gardner, vice president of sales and marketing for ViewPlus.

The simple functionality of the St. Helens made it an obvious choice for ViewPlus, which required a printhead that could fire at an angle -- something many of today's more sophisticated inkjet pens just can't do.

"We needed it to shoot up," said Gaby Herden, the company's director of hardware development. "This was the only one that could do it."

Medical researchers are even using old inkjet models to "print" sheets of new skin cells for burn victims.

In Cloutier's view, that's the kind of radical innovation that marks inkjet printing as a truly revolutionary development.

"Any technology that's really a breakthrough will go through a couple of phases," he said.

"In the first phase, it simply replaces the technology that's out there. The second phase is it will create whole new industries."

By Bennett Hall, the business editor for the Gazette-Times.
He can be reached at 758-9529 or hallb@gtconnect.com.

ViewPlus Embossers are Talking from Taiwan to Texas

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. announced the launch of the Tiger User Group, an email-based global communication tool for Tiger users to share tricks and tips.

ViewPlus® has thrived on the ingenuity of its customers to continually raise the bar for the VI industry. It is this partnering spirit that prompted the state-of-the-art communication method. The launch of the Tiger User Group is a step towards uniting the span of ViewPlus customers throughout the world.

The international Tiger community has now been equipped to efficiently express their ideas and concerns, and to solicit the expert advice from their peers. Finally, a Tiger user in Taipei , Taiwan can reach a Tiger user in Plano , Texas .

To join the Tiger User Group, simply send an email with the subject: "sign me up!" to userlist-subscribe@viewplus.com . The Group is open to anyone with an interest in ViewPlus Technologies or Tiger embossers.

Blind Entrepreneur to be Honored by Governor

ViewPlus® President and CEO, Dr. John Gardner, will be awarded with the prestigious annual 2003 Oregon Disabilities Commission Governors Award at a ceremony October 14 at the Oregon State Capital. Gardner, a blind physics professor turned entrepreneur, started inventing to narrow the gap between the sighted and non-sighted. What he created revolutionized education and greatly increased professional opportunities for blind people throughout the world. In the process, he built a growing technology company that employs people of all abilities. It is for this work, that he will be honored.

When an eye operation left Gardner totally blind in 1988 at the age of 48, his career as a physics professor at Oregon State University was immediately in jeopardy. No longer able to communicate effectively to students and colleagues in his highly mathematical and visually-oriented field, he set out to create technologies that would enable him to continue his career. Within a year, Gardner invented a new system to make braille math easy and, soon thereafter, a special braille embosser capable of printing tactile images of the visual objects he could no longer see.

Rather than keep his creations to himself, Gardner mortgaged his family's home in order to make his inventions available to others who needed them and founded ViewPlus® Technologies in 1996. Since its founding, ViewPlus® has employed and empowered many people with disabilities. The company now employs 21 people and in just a few years has become a leader in the international assistive technology community.

“[He] has made is possible for individuals with vision impairments…to succeed in fields of education and employment previously not open to them,” states Disabilities Commission Executive Director, Janine Delaunay.

The award will be given October 14, 2003 at 1:00 pm in the Rotunda of the Oregon State Capitol. Governor Theodore Kulongoski will personally present the award to Dr. John Gardner. Jeff Gianola from KOIN TV will be the Master of Ceremonies. It will be followed by a reception in which Gardner will be honored.

More information on Dr. Gardner’s work and his company, ViewPlus® Technologies, is available at www.viewplus.com and by calling 1.541.754.4002 x 214. Other recent achievements by Dr. Gardner include the 2002 Oregon State University Distinguished Service Award and National Business Incubator Association award for 2003 Best Technology Company.

Making its Mark: Special link with Microsoft aids as ViewPlus expands range beyond Braille

When you're trying to build a small company, it never hurts to have some big friends. ViewPlus Technologies has one of the biggest: Microsoft.

Founded in Corvallis in 1996, ViewPlus makes a line of computer printers for blind people. Like other printers for the visually impaired, the Tiger Embosser prints text in Braille characters using raised dots. But it's the only embosser on the market that can also produce tactile versions of graphic images, from a diagram of the human heart to a map of the United States to the Periodic Table of the Elements.

It's also the only embosser on the market that runs on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

"Other embossers work with Braille software," said Jeff Gardner, the company's vice president for sales and marketing and son of company founder John Gardner, a former Oregon State University physics professor who lost his sight from complications after surgery in 1988. "None of them other than the Tiger can be hooked up directly to Microsoft Office."

Given the fact that Windows is far and away the most widely used computer operating system in the world, the Tiger's Microsoft compatibility has been a major selling point.

About two years ago, ViewPlus began working directly with a new unit of Microsoft, the Assistive Technology Vendor Program. The program involves 32 companies in 16 areas of assistive technology, from programs that read text off computer screens to cursors you can point by moving your head.

It's a mutually beneficial arrangement, said Gary Moulton, a Microsoft product manager involved in the project.

"The benefit for ViewPlus is they get an early look at Microsoft technology that's under development," Moulton said.

"The benefit Microsoft gets as a result of that is we have a wide variety of assistive technology manufacturers looking at products we have under development and giving us feedback we could get nowhere else. The bottom line is when a new Microsoft product comes out, there's an assistive technology that's already compatible with it."

Moulton estimates there are 5 million to 10 million disabled computer users in the United States. That might seem like small potatoes for a company as big as Microsoft, but Moulton says otherwise.

"There's two reasons why the disability market is important to us," he said.

"First of all, we can't sell our products to the federal government unless our products are accessible to people with disabilities.

"The second reason is more on the marketing side. We really believe our technology can be used by anybody to be more independent at work, at home and at play. I think it's core to our business success."

The Microsoft connection may help explain the rapid expansion ViewPlus has enjoyed over the last several years.

In 1999, ViewPlus moved out of its 328-square-foot home office into the Business Enterprise Center, a Corvallis incubator for mid-valley startup companies. Since then, the company has grown from three to 17 employees and now occupies about 4,000 square feet of office and light industrial space, making it the BEC's largest tenant. The firm's success recently earned ViewPlus one of two Outstanding Incubator Client awards for 2003 from the National Business Incubation Association.

Sales growth has been strong as well.

"We've doubled our revenues last two years," Gardner said. "We're well on our way to doing it again this year."

From $68,000 in 1999, sales jumped to about $350,000 in 2000 and nearly $700,000 in 2001, Gardner said. The company is projecting revenues of $1.5 million this year.

Meanwhile, ViewPlus has built a network of dealers and distributors that extends into Canada, Italy, India, Taiwan and South Korea and could soon include Thailand, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brazil.

While it's putting those distribution channels in place, the company is also working on a new line of products that will expand the Tiger's functionality into new realms.

"Many of the technologies that work for blind people are helpful for people with other disabilities," said John Gardner, who retired from his post as an OSU physics professor this year to devote more time to his business. "Our final product is not going to be just for blind people, it's also going to be for dyslexic people."

ViewPlus engineers are working on an accessible viewer program for scalable vector graphics. SVG files make it possible to embed sound clips into normal graphic images using computer "tags." Users can place a printout of the SVG file on a touch-sensitive pad, then activate the audio clips by pressing the tagged portions of the graphic.

With the ViewPlus viewer software, users will be able to import an SVG file from the Web and make an embossed printout on the Tiger. Then, using a touch pad, they'll be able to get a sound-enhanced version of the tactile image.

"It's called tri-modal access," the elder Gardner said. "You're going to be able to see it, you're going to be able to touch it and you're going to be able to hear it."

The latest version of Microsoft's Visio SVG program will support the new viewer software.

With new products in the pipeline, Jeff Gardner believes ViewPlus is positioned for another round of growth. So far the firm has relied on "friends and family" financing, as well as some government grants. Now it's time to look for venture capital.

"We have very optimistic development goals," he said. "We can make some giant leaps if we can really get some financing behind our efforts."

Not all the rewards for ViewPlus are financial. Office manager Carolyn Gardner, John's wife and Jeff's mother, recalled what happened when a blind student from Louisiana first got his hands on a map of the United States produced by the Tiger Embosser.

"A friend of mine took some maps to a deaf-blind camp," she said. "They were so excited — ‘This is where I live? This is what Louisiana looks like? And this is Texas? No wonder they're such braggarts.' "

"Now," said her husband, "blind people are realizing there's more to life than words."

By Bennett Hall, the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or hallb@gtconnect.com.

ViewPlus Technologies Receives International Honor

ViewPlus Technologies Inc. today was named the 2003 Outstanding Incubator Client in the technology category at the National Business Incubation Association’s (NBIA) 17th International Conference on Business Incubation in Richmond, Va.

A client of the Business Enterprise Center (BEC) of Linn and Benton Counties , ViewPlus commercializes technologies that help the visually impaired access graphical information tactilely. The company’s flagship product, the Tiger embosser, is the first embosser to print both Braille and tactile graphics directly from most Microsoft Windows computer applications.

When ViewPlus founder and president John Gardner lost his eyesight in 1988, the internationally recognized physics professor from Oregon State University discovered that simply reading a map or analyzing a spreadsheet was next to impossible. While Braille helped the visually impaired read words, little technology was available to help them access graphic information.

Noting that many visual objects—like the complex equations and flow charts common in math and science—cannot adequately be described with words, Gardner set out to develop tools to help him and others with visual disabilities study and work in fields that traditionally had been out of reach for the blind.

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Gardner created the Science Access Project at Oregon State to develop technologies that promote full accessibility of electronic information by people with visual disabilities. ViewPlus Technologies was incorporated in 1996 to commercialize technologies that came out of the research project.

”All entrepreneurs have a passion to succeed, but Dr. Gardner is unparalleled in his laser-like focus on his mission,” said Bill Ford, vice president of the board of directors at the Business Enterprise Center . “ViewPlus is a company built on frustration over a situation John lives with every day, so he has a burning passion to do something about it.”

Prior to joining the Business Enterprise Center in 1999, Gardner met with the staff of the incubator several times while growing his business at home. “I always knew we’d move into the incubator when the time was right,” he said. “We knew technology, but we didn’t really know business. We recognized that we didn’t always know what we were doing though, so we reached out for help.”

Business incubation programs catalyze the process of starting and growing companies by providing entrepreneurs with the expertise, networks and tools they need to make their ventures successful. Research shows that 87 percent of companies that graduate from incubation programs are still in business. Today, more than 950 of these programs operate in North America, up from 12 in 1980.

As an academic turned entrepreneur, Gardner said he appreciates the guidance provided by on-site incubator manager Ellen Fuller, who answers day-to-day questions about running a business. He noted that access to an advisory panel of seasoned business counselors, the availability of standard office facilities, and the ability to network with other entrepreneurs also have been instrumental to the company’s growth.

Since 1999, the company has expanded from one 328-square-foot office to nearly 3,000 square feet of both office and light industrial space. ViewPlus now employs 16 people, including Gardner ’s wife, Carolyn, who serves as vice president of operations, and their son, Jeff, who serves as vice president of marketing.

According to Gardner , ViewPlus will continue to develop new technologies to help the visually impaired access the same information as sighted individuals. The company recently secured two federal Small Business Innovation Research grants to improve the accessibility of graphic information on the Internet.

Gardner, who received Oregon State ’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002, retired from the university in January 2003.

The 2003 Outstanding Incubator Client award is sponsored by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) of the City of Richmond . The IDA supports Richmond ’s economic development strategy and assists the city with commercial development projects.

The National Business Incubation Association is the world’s leading organization advancing incubation and entrepreneurship. Each year, NBIA honors the business incubators, client companies and graduates that exemplify the best of the industry.

The BEC is located in Corvallis, Oregon. It was created in 1988 through a grant from the Oregon State Lottery as a part of the regional strategies program administered by the State of Oregon Economic and Community Development Department. The board of directors is made up of local business people, dedicated professionals from large and small companies alike. The BEC is currently the business home to new companies. The BEC is celebrating its fifteen years of successful operation by re-inventing itself and its business model and preparing to move to a new facility.