Analyzing the Accuracy of Braille Finger Tracking with Ultraleap’s Virtual Reality Hand Tracking System

Tracking the fingers of users of refreshable braille displays can be useful for studying braille reading habits and for user-centric features, such as in braille learning tools. Ultraleap offers a low-cost system for hand tracking in virtual reality use cases, which could be utilized for braille finger tracking if its accuracy is sufficient. In an experimental setup using a 20-cell refreshable braille display, the x-coordinates of two test persons’ fingertips were repeatedly captured on four distinct braille cells. The largest range of values measured for one cell was 0.01 Ultraleap units (~10 mm), and two instances of overlapping values between neighboring cells were observed in the study, indicating that the accuracy is insufficient to capture a single braille cell in the user’s center of attention. However, the system could still be utilized for use cases like reading out the word that is currently touched as the system was off by only one braille cell in the worst case.