Dynamic reading

Technology-based company develops electronic magnifying glass which allows the visually impaired to adjust focus and write or draw.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – People who have less than 10% of their vision or subnormal vision (between 5% to 30% of normal) now have a new device to help them read and write. Bonavision, a scientific company that was incubated in the Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology (Cietec), developed an electronic magnifying glass with an adjustable focus and a technological resource that allows users to write or draw.

The product is the fourth launched by the company. Released in 2008, the first was a specialty magnifying glass that amplifies texts five times and reduces distortions, allowing the impaired to view words. In 2009, the company’s researchers launched a reading board with an electronic magnifying glass.

The new device features a zoom that allows users to amplify images 10 to 80 times, as needed. And by positioning a pen or pencil below the high sensitivity, color video camera, which features automatically controlled lighting, the user can write or draw, seeing the image projected on a TV screen or computer.

“This innovation represents a major advance for visually impaired students, senior citizens or people who work in companies and need to read (a relatively passive activity) or write,” said José Américo Bonatti,  one of the directors at Bonavision and a researcher at the Ophthalmology Clinic of Universidade de São Paulo’s Medical School, in an interview with Agência FAPESP.

The previous project entitled, “Reading board with a magnifying glass” received FAPESP funding under the Innovative Research at Small Businesses (PIPE). The company’s request for a national and international patent was funded in part through FAPESP’s Support for Intellectual Property (PAPI).

According to Bonatti, the incremental innovations made to the equipment were based on the evaluation of clinical demand from patients. In research, patients expressed a desire to have an electronic magnifying glass with a broader amplification range as well as a variable focus that allows users to employ less zoom on a book font size, for example, and enlarge the entire page.

In order to create this feature, the researchers developed a zoom system which, in addition to increasing the text font, allows the reader to write and draw. As the device requires a certain amount space to maintain the focal distance in relation to the page and allow for amplification of the focus, the researchers utilized this space to allow the users to place his/her hand to write or draw and see the image projected on a TV or computer screen. “This innovation represents a greater technological leap than our previous products,” explains Bonatti.

According to him, imported devices have the zoom system. However, the Brazilian equipment presented the advantage of, in addition to being more sophisticated, having a price equivalent to half that of foreign competitors and offering more comfort and a better ergonomic fit.

Unlike imported products, this is the only magnifier that allows users to securely follow the horizontal line of a text because a video camera moves along a metallic track on the reading board, guided by the user, which can be seated at a table, on the sofa or even in bed.

“We developed technology that affords the user independence, efficacy and control of the equipment through voluntary movement.  No other similar device in the world offers this,” he affirms.

The product was launched at the end of July and is being commercialized initially on the domestic market, mainly for schools which can use the device to save on special edition books for visually impaired students.

“The new equipment saves schools money because they will not need  to adapt any book. They can use a conventional book and put it under the magnifier to increase or reduce the font. And this allows students to integrate, not stigmatize students with visual impairments, who often stand out because s/he is reading a gigantic book that is different from the rest of the class,” says Bonatti. According to him, the equipment can be utilized with minimal training and users easily understand how it works.