Real time bidirectional translator of Portuguese sign language

The communication with deaf by means of written text is not as efficient as it might seem at first. In fact, there is a very deep gap between sign language and spoken/written language. The vocabulary, the sentence construction and the grammatical rules are quite different among these two worlds. These facts bring significant difficulties in reading and understanding the meaning of text for deaf people and, on the other hand, make it quite difficult for people with no hearing disabilities to understand sign language. The deployment of tools to assist the daily communication, in schools, in public services, in museums and other, between deaf people and the rest may be a significant contribution to the social inclusion of the deaf community. The work described in this paper addresses the development of a bidirectional translator between Portuguese Sign Language and Portuguese text and a serious game to promote the learning of the Portuguese Sign Language. The translator from sign language to text resorts to two devices, namely the Microsoft Kinect and 5DT Sensor Gloves in order to gather data about the motion and shape of the hands. The hands configurations are classified using Support Vector Machines. The classification of the movement and orientation of the hands is achieved through the use of Dynamic Time Warping algorithm. The translator exhibits a precision higher than 90%. In the other direction, the translation of Portuguese text to Portuguese Sign Language is supported by a 3D avatar which interprets the entered text and performs the corresponding animations. As a complement, we also present a serious game directed to assist in the difficult task of learning the Portuguese Sign Language.

Keywords

Portuguese sign language Education Deaf Kinect Sensor gloves Translator Machine learning OpenCv Support vector machines Dynamic time warping Avatar Serious games

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/14617

Citation

Escudeiro, P., Escudeiro, N., Reis, R., Rodrigues, P., Lopes, J., Norberto, M., Baltasar, A. B., Barbosa, M., & Bidarra, J. (2015). Real Time Bidirectional Translator of Portuguese Sign Language. Comunicação publicada nas atas da WEBIST 2015 - 11th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, Lisboa, 20-22 de maio, pp. 203-213.