MATLAB-based Image-to-Speech Conversion

With the increasing importance and popularity of smartphones, there has been a need to include function within the phone that is catered toward users with impairments or disabilities. An example of this is the inclusion of accessibility features such as a screen reader for the visually impaired; however, this is unable to read text from live video. The paper aims to create and implement using MATLAB and image-to-speech conversion system that lets the user point a smartphone camera toward a scene with text and the system will then read the text aloud for the user to hear which is beneficial for visually impaired users to navigate their surroundings. Results have shown that scenes with greater contrast tend to have more accurate readings.