lncs 4556 - interface of online mini-go-game with pen

C. Stephanidis (Ed.): Universal Access in HCI, Part III, HCII 2007, LNCS 4556, pp. 806–812, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007

Interface of Online Mini-Go-Game with Pen Input Guide for the Blind

Michio Shimizu1, Masahiko Sugimoto2, and Kazunori Itoh3

1 Nagano-ken College, Miwa 8-49-7 Nagano-shi, 380-8525 Japan.

[email protected]

2 Takushoku University Hokkaido College, Memu 4558 Fukagawa-shi, 074-8585 Japan.

[email protected] 3 Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University, Wakasato 4-17-1

Nagano-shi, 380-8553 Japan. [email protected]

Abstract. In this paper, an interface of a Mini-Go-game (Go game with a 9x9 board) on a network for the blind is studied. If the Mini-Go-game on the Internet for the blind can be realized as a web application using PC or a cellular phone, it is easy to obtain an opponent without going out. Therefore, we introduce a pen input guide which correspond to a 9x9 board, and propose a co-operative system of a Mini-Go-game with sound feedback.

Keywords: Mini-Go-game, visually impaired, pen input guide, sound feedback, co-operative system, virtual sound screen.

1 Introduction

The use of the Internet has been considering as the communication support to a visually impaired person in order to increase his life quality. In this paper, an interface of a Mini-Go-game (Go game with a 9x9 board) on a network for the blind is studied. If the Mini-Go-game on the Internet for the blind can be realized as a web application using PC or a cellular phone, it is easy to obtain an opponent without going out. Therefore, we introduce a pen input guide which correspond to a 9x9 board, and propose a co-operative system of a Mini-Go-game with sound feedback. Our system consists of a server, two clients and the input-output interface uses tactile and auditory senses together.

2 Background of the Mini-Go-Game

Go is one of a board game for two players. It is also called Weiqi in China, Igo in Japan, and Baduk in Korea [1]. The game of Go is now popular throughout the world especially in the East Asia. However, for a visually impaired person, the Go game of a normal 19x19 board is too difficult to play. Although the game rules are very

Interface of Online Mini-Go-Game with Pen Input Guide for the Blind 807

simple, it is very difficult to grasp the layout on a board. Then, using the 9x9 board game of Go (we call it Mini-Go-game) (Fig.1), the special equipment is made for the blind (Fig.2) [2]. The go board has holes to keep stones and black and white stones can be identified with a mark on them. Touching lines and stones with finger enables the visually impaired to position a stone and imagine a stone layout. The player in a game reads aloud the position of a stone each other.

Fig. 1. Mini-Go-Game

Fig. 2. Mini-Go-game board for the blind

By the way, the relation of Go and the Internet & computer is becoming very strong. Recently, many (sighted) peoples are playing the Go game (in this case a normal 19x19 board) using the Internet against opponents from around the world. It is simply called “Internet Go”. On the other hand, “Computer Go” is the field of an artificial intelligence [7]. In spite of great efforts to develop a program, it is

808 M. Shimizu, M. Sugimoto, and K. Itoh

considered that the Computer Go is still infant level. As for the “Computer Mini-Go”, very strong programs were created and they are helpful to study the Go game.

However, the interface of “Computer Mini-Go” and “Internet Mini-Go” for a blind person is not realized. Only so-called “Mail Mini-Go” is performed by using the e-mail among blind persons. The player sends the position of a stone as a numerical value through e-mail, and the opponent reads out it by using a screen reader and sets a stone on his real board. The system played on the Internet while grasping the layout of a stone on the 9x9 board is not developed yet.

3 Co-operative System Using Pen Input Guide

Then, we create the virtual board on web corresponding to the real 9x9 board, and make the co-operative system (Fig.3) with which the blind can play a Mini-Go as an experiment. The system is made from a web server and two clients with a headphone and a pen tablet. We introduce the pen input guide (Fig. 4) [3] on a pen tablet to grasp a layout of the stone on a board with sound feedback. Sound feedback is made from a virtual sound screen (Fig.6) [4] that is a 2-dimensional space using characteristics of hearing, called sound localization.

Fig. 3. Co-operative system

3.1 Pen Input Guide

Our pen input guide is made from acrylics with thickness of 4mm, and is used on a pen tablet (Fig.4). The guide consists of a game board area and eight operational holes to the surroundings. Game board area (Fig. 5) is 54 by 54mm in square, and has 81


holes located in a line in the shape of a lattice, and slots for making movement of a pen easy. Among 81 holes, five holes are enlarged and these holes are equivalent to the center point and the star points of a real board. Furthermore, in order to make a game board area clearly, the edge on all sides is high.

On the other hand, operational holes have functions for supporting advance of a game. Eight operational holes express the function of “start”, “pass”, “send”, “get”, “count”, ”arrange”, “touryou”(means give up), and “history” to a clockwise rotation from the upper left. Placing a stone or calling a function is performed by clicking the side button of a pen, pointing out the hole with a pen.

Fig. 4. Pen input guide

Fig. 5. Game board area

3.2 Sound Feedback

In order to check the layout of stones, three kinds of tones corresponding to black stones, white stones and vacant intersections are assigned in advance. The musical instrument sounds of a piano and a violin are assigned to black and white respectively, the sine wave is assigned to vacant. Moreover, a property of localized


sound which has a position-information specified uniquely on the 2-dimensional virtual sound screen is added to these three kinds of tones.

Figure 6 illustrates 81 discrete localized sound positions using by our system. The vertical axis of the virtual sound screen is expressed by 9 frequencies of the musical scale G4 (392.00Hz) through B5 (987.77Hz). The horizontal axis is expressed by 9 interaural level differences between both ears. The difference of two adjacent localized sounds set at 5 dB. This creates a virtual sound screen made from 81 discrete localized sound positions.

If the hole on a board area is followed with a pen, one of three kinds of sounds can be heard. The time duration of the sound output is 30 msec. Other feedbacks using speech synthesized sounds which support the advance of a game are as follows.

(a) Reading out the operational function when a pen is on an operational hole. (b) Reading out the coordinate when a stone is put on a vacant intersection. (c) Reading out the sequential coordinates by the function “history” in order to

check the game history from a start to present. (d) If he is going to input a stone at the place on which a stone is already put, a

sound "sokoniwa-utemasen" (means you can not input it there) is outputted and he can not input.

(High)

987.77 x x x x x x x x x

880.00 x x x x x x x x x

783.99 x x x x x x x x x

698.46 x x x x x x x x x

622.25 x x x x x x x x x

554.37 x x x x x x x x x

493.88 x x x x x x x x x

440.00 x x x x x x x x x

392.00 x x x x x x x x x

(Low) -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 (dB)(Left) (Right)

Fre

quen

cy a

lter

atio

n

(H

z)

Interaural level difference(dB)

Fig. 6. Virtual sound screen

3.3 Game Program

Let suppose player P1 and P2 are going to start the game, and player P1 and P2 use client PC C1 and C2 respectively. A flow of our game program consists of (1) game start, (2) stone placing and (3) game end. A player cannot be input a stone at the time of the turn of his opponent.


(1) Both players' input of “start” starts a game. The player inputted first becomes black. Now, we assume that player P1 became black.

(2) a) Player P1 inputs a black stone into a vacant hole, and the sound corresponding coordinate is outputted. For example, the black stone shown in Fig.1 is “yon no san” (4 and 3). Next, player P1 inputs a function “send”, so the coordinate is sent to the web server.

b) The web server sends a signal to both clients, and a sound “ping-pong” is outputted from both clients.

c) Player P2 inputs a function “get”, the coordinate is sent to the client C2. Then the sound corresponding coordinate is outputted.

d) Player P2 inputs a white stone into a vacant hole, and sound corresponding coordinate is outputted. For example, the white stone shown in Fig.1 is “roku no go” (6 and 5). Next, player P2 inputs a function “send”, so the coordinate is send to the web server.

e) The web server sends a signal to both clients, and a sound “ping-pong” is outputted from both clients.

f) Player P1 inputs a function “get”, the coordinate is sent to the client C1. Then the sound corresponding coordinate is outputted.

g) From a) to f) is repeated. (3) When one of players inputs a function “touryou” or both of players input a

function “pass”, the flow of the game will go to the game end. Each territory is counted by the continuing functions “arrange” and “count”.

Our game program is a developmental stage. The program that players input a

stone by turns and they exchange the place of a stone mutually is already created. But, in order to decide a victory or defeat, the program which counts both territories is not made yet. Various board programs are already proposed [7] as a base of “Computer Go”, it is more efficient to use these free programs.

4 Conclusion

It was observed through the practice of the subjects that the use of a finger was important. Almost subjects follow the holes on board area with the left index finger firstly, and next they point out the hole with a pen and input a stone. In this report, the board game using a personal digital assistant was assumed, so it was considered that an input area was comparatively small. However, when performing a game on an ordinary tablet, it is desirable to make an input guide and its holes large. In order to use a tactile sense more, a finger input equipped with the function of a pen input might be considered.

From the comments of the subjects, we recognize that the sound feedbacks of our localized sound are effective to grasp a layout, but the quantitative evaluation of the effects has not been studied. And, the improvement of the method to grasp a layout on a board is still a future work. For example, the virtual sound screen made from HRTF [8] would be applied to read out of the coordinates.


Acknowledgement. We are thankful to Mr. Takayoshi Baba of the Shinshu University Graduate School who cooperated in creation of the input guide.

References

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game) 2. http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/s̃go/index.html 3. Masahiko, S., Kazunori, I., Michio, S.: Simple pattern creation using a pen input guide and

sound localization for the visually impaired. In: Miesenberger, K., Klaus, J., Zagler, W., Burger, D. (eds.) ICCHP 2004. LNCS, vol. 3118, pp. 745–752. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

4. Michio, S., Kazunori, I., Tatsuo, N.: Pattern Representation System using Movement Sense of Localized Sound. In: Proceedings of HCI, pp. 990–994 (1999)

5. Roth, P., Petrucci, L., Assimacopoulos, A., Pun, T.: From Dots to Shapes: an auditory haptic game platform for teaching geometry to blind pupils. In: ICCHP 2000 proceedings pp. 603–610 (2000)

6. Kamel, H.M., Roth, P., Shiha, R.R.: Graphics and User’s Exploration via Simple sonics(GUESS): Providing Interrelational Representation of Objects in a Non-visual Environment. In: Proceedings of the 2001 Inter. Conf. on Auditory Display pp. 261–266 (2001)

7. http://www.computer-go.jp/index.html 8. Kazunori, I., Michio, S.: GUI Objects Represented by New Localized Sounds using HRTF.

In: Proceedings of HCI, pp. 1285–1289 (2003)

lncs 4556 - interface of online mini-go-game with pen

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