REPOSITORY CREATION IN PROGRESS
Final open source release of NASA's Math Description Engine Software Development Kit (MDE SDK), VERSION 1.0.3, NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) license. Prior releases are available at http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/mde
Original development by NASA Learning Technologies, Information Accessibility Lab. Developers: Dr. Robert O. Shelton, Terry Hodgson, Dan Dexter, Stephanie Smith, Dat Truong. Runner-up in the NASA Software of the Year Award competition, in 2006. Recognized Education Laureates in the The Tech Awards 2007 international competition.
"With about 100,000 blind and visually impaired students in the U.S., there is a growing need for alternative methods to teach visual subjects.", National Federation of the Blind Press Release
The Math Description Engine Software Development Kit can be used by software developers to make computer-rendered graphs more accessible to blind and visually-impaired users. It has a simple API that lets you easily add alternative text and sound descriptions to your graphs.
Version 1 of the MDE SDK generates text descriptions for 2D graphs commonly seen in math and science curriculum (and practice). The mathematically rich text descriptions can also serve as a virtual math and science assistant for blind and sighted users, making graphs more accessible for everyone.
The Java-based toolkit also has a set of accessible Java Swing components that enable user-controlled viewing and analysis of graphs using sound.
Check out the MDE API documentation and the MDE Programmer's Guide to see how you can make graphs available to more users with just a few lines of code. Check out our Demos to see examples of graphs that are described in text and sound with the MDE SDK.