A Visit to eSight

After working on the All-Seeing Pi, a series of events unfolded such that Dan and I were put in contact with a company called eSight. The founder of eSight had the same inspiration as the All-Seeing Pi many years ago, and has now developed the third generation of a vision assist platform.

So we were invited to come check out their technology, and see how it stacks up to our contraption. For starters, it is a very sleek and lightweight design that looks a little more stylish. It also has some great vision enhancement functionality like contrast boosting, magnification, and screenshots. Using these features, Dan was able to read an eye chart at the "20-30" level, which is better than he was able to see  before he lost his vision!

This hasn't stopped our interest in the All-Seeing Pi though, as eSight comes with a pretty hefty price tag of $10k. An existing commercial solution is never a good reason to stop a DIY project too!

The All-Seeing Pi

This post is a about vision enhancement platform called The All-Seeing Pi that I have been working on with my friend Dan, who is blind. People who are blind rarely have no vision at all though, and in Dan's case, he still has a little bit of sight in one eye. He's also the first to tell you how much technology can do to enable mobility.

From these discussions, we came up with the idea for a video feed connected to a display, with a wearable screen in the ideal spot for maximum vision. This allows someone to focus on just the screen, and let the camera capture the detail and depth of the environment.

In the end, the prototype served as a successful proof of concept. Checkout the video above for a field test and some more discussion! Dan also likes to push the limits of what can be done with his disability, which he chronicles at his blog Three Points of Contact.

In the rest of this post, I'll be talking about how to build the device. This may be useful if you or a friend have a similar condition, but it is also a great starting platform for a Raspberry Pi based augmented reality rig. The general setup is a raspberry pi with a camera module running on an HDMI (not SPI!) small display. The video feed is provided via OpenCV and RaspiCam, with code and install details below.