Review on Image Sonification: A Non-visual Scene Representation

Abstract

With the advent of image and video representation of visual scenes in digital computer, subsequent necessity of vision-substitution representation of a given image is felt. The medium for non-visual representation of an image is chosen to be sound due to well developed auditory sensing ability of human beings and wide availability of cheap audio hardware. Visionary information of an image can be conveyed to blind and partially sighted persons through auditory representation of the image within some of the known limitations of human hearing system. The research regarding image sonification has mostly evolved through last three decades. The paper also discusses in brief about the reverse mapping, termed as sound visualization. This survey approaches to summarize the methodologies and issues of the implemented and unimplemented experimental systems developed for subjective sonification of image scenes and let researchers accumulate knowledge about the previous direction of researches in this domain.