Janet Ingber
Recently, Mike May gave a presentation of the GoodMaps software at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, California. Mike May is a pioneer in the field of using GPS to help people who are blind or visually impaired get from place to place. May lost his vision at age three but did reacquire some vision in later years. The heading on May’s LinkedIn page is, “Chief Evangelist GoodMaps and founder of Sendero Group, the accessible GPS company.” He has more than 20 years in research and development of accessible navigation for the blind and visually impaired.
May began the presentation with one of his principle mottos, “The better you get around, the better you engage in life, whether that’s career or recreation.” He continued, “So what that means is using accessible tools and techniques to accomplish all the things we need to accomplish.” He spoke about what he needed to do to get from his home in Reno, Nevada to Los Angeles, California. This included booking flights, navigating the airport, and getting from the airport to his hotel. He added, “Compared to a sighted person, half of the things I had to deal with they could deal with much easier. We’re in a visual, print world. That’s the way it’s set up, so what are our alternative tools and techniques?”
As part of his trip, May got to ride in a Waymo autonomous vehicle, a self-driving car. He was the only person in the vehicle. He said, “I’m still mind boggled that it actually worked. I wasn’t exactly nervous, I was more thrilled.” He added, “What I encountered was the same thing that we run into with all the GPS apps and a lot of the other tools, which is the first ten feet and the last ten feet.”
May next spoke about life acuity. He explained, “We talk about visual acuity. You can have two people with the same visual impairment and one person can get around really well and the other may be afraid or stay home a lot. I think that’s a function of using those alternative tools and techniques.”
May continued, “One of my principles is, there’s always a way. So when you’re problem solving, which is what we do as blind people all the time, if you have the attitude that there’s a way to do this, if you believe there is a way, you’ll be persistent and figure it out.” He did indicate that sometimes there is no way to fix a problem, but you do not give up right away.
The GoodMaps Outdoors app has turn-by-turn navigation and intersection details. May said, Indoors is the new frontier for navigation, GoodMaps Explore uses lidar (light detection and ranging) mapping. May said that the laser unit GoodMaps uses is about the size of a big flashlight or hand-held vacuum and has a lens on it. May explained, “That laser is carried by our mapper as he walks around the building and he pans it back and forth. It is imaging the space he is in. He’s getting a representation of all the walls and the ceiling and the furniture and everything else in that facility. Every one of those points, every millimeter of space, gets a georeference. It has a point that can later be used for location. Once that 3D cloud image is captured, then it’s processed and turned into a map which now can be accessed from your phone’s camera.”
When using GoodMaps Outside, the app’s search feature will allow you to choose a destination. You will get turn-by-turn directions to get you there.
May explained that the challenges to indoor navigation include making the maps and testing. He said the venue owner pays for the service and the most recent installation was at the Portland, Oregon airport. May then described how he could easily navigate the airport including getting to security and the gate. He said, “The challenge of course is that most buildings don’t have it yet, but the beauty is it’s worth installing. It’s worth the expense because it’s now more affordable. We can get it installed. We’re just on the brink of changing the fact that we can navigate to a building, now how do we get to the destination inside? As you know, the journey isn’t over when you get to the front door.”
GoodMaps Outside and GoodMaps Explore are free and available in the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store.
Mike May can be contacted at info@goodmaps.com.
