Introduction: Individuals with visual impairments acquire information about objects through touch and by use of auxiliary tactile pictures. The current study introduced a new three-dimensional (3D) printing pen technology as a research tool to allow individuals with visual impairments to convert tactile experiences to convex tactile pictures. Methods: Participants with visual impairments used a 3D pen to draw pictures of daily necessities. The actions and time related to the entire drawing activity were recorded on video. Results: We noted three behaviors during the use of 3D pen: drawing, touching the trace lines, and finding location points. The object-depiction angle, component-completeness description, and drawing-line presentation differed between subjects with congenital and those with acquired blindness. Discussion: Individuals with congenital blindness depicted objects mainly from an operational angle, and those with acquired blindness from the angle of the object when laid flat. When the components of an object were relatively complex, the subjects with congenital blindness only drew local features in contact with their bodies and with continuous line segments, and those with acquired blindness used discontinuous line segments. Participants were satisfied that the 3D printing pen could touch the drawing path in time and that they could use the “piling” feature to create positioning marks or planar expressions. Implications for practitioners: Students can be instructed to use 3D pens to draw (lines, planes, and objects) to enhance the communication between teachers and students and improve teaching efficiency. Regarding the design of tactile pictures, the parts that come in contact with the body during object use can be considered the reference features of the pictures. For large pictures, attention should be paid to the size ratio between the outline and components. For small pictures, one should consider how the operational feature details should be shown at approximately the original size.

中文翻译：

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视觉障碍人士生成的 3D 笔触感图片

简介：有视觉障碍的人通过触摸和辅助触觉图片获取有关物体的信息。当前的研究引入了一种新的 3D (3D) 打印笔技术作为研究工具，允许有视觉障碍的个人将触觉体验转换为凸出的触觉图片。方法：有视觉障碍的参与者使用3D笔绘制日常生活用品的图片。与整个绘图活动相关的动作和时间都记录在视频中。结果：我们注意到在使用 3D 笔过程中的三种行为：绘图、触摸轨迹线和查找位置点。先天性失明受试者和后天失明受试者的对象描述角度、组件完整性描述和绘图线表示不同。讨论：先天性失明者主要从操作角度描绘物体，而后天失明者则主要从物体平放时的角度来描绘物体。当物体的组成成分比较复杂时，先天性失明者只画与身体接触的局部特征，用连续的线段，后天性失明者用不连续的线段。参与者对 3D 打印笔可以及时接触绘图路径，并且他们可以使用“打桩”功能创建定位标记或平面表达感到满意。对从业者的启示：可以指导学生使用3D笔来画（线、面、物），加强师生交流，提高教学效率。关于触觉图片的设计，物体在使用过程中与身体接触的部分，可以认为是图片的参考特征。对于大图，要注意轮廓和组件的大小比例。对于小图片，应该考虑如何以近似原始尺寸显示操作特征细节。