WalkersGuide

WalkersGuide is a navigational aid primarily intended for blind and visual impaired pedestrians. It calculates routes and shows nearby points of interest. The project consists of an Android client and a server component. The latter performs the route calculation. The map data is provided by OpenStreetMap, a project to create a free map of the world.

The WalkersGuide project is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Therefore it can be used for free. You only have to install the client application. See Downloads for that.

Main features

• Based on chosen start and destination the server calculates a route, which is optimized for walkers. Source for start and destination can be the current position, an address, a point of interest or the point history.
• You can prioritise certain way classes to get a more accessible route. For example you may prefer secondary instead of primary streets to avoid complex intersections and reduce traffic noise.
• You get continuous feedback about distance and bearing of the next routing point.
• When you reach an intersection, you can query information about the name, condition and bearing of their streets in realtime.
• Beside the routing functionality the application also offers a list of nearby points of interest. This includes shops, public buildings, bus and train stations, intersections, traffic signals and some more.
• You can simulate every distant point like an address in another town or country. The application behaves as if you are really there. So it’s possible to explore the next route destination while still at home.
• You can add personal favorites to mark important points.

If you are interested and want to know more you may listen to this podcast episode from blind Android users in which I give a quick introduction and highlight the main features of the app or have a look into the apps user manual.

Available maps

This WalkersGuide server instance provides the maps of the whole world. Please have a look at its status page for more details. If you still can’t find your country please contact me.

Motivation

The project started in 2012. There were two reasons for the focus on blind and visual users:

1. The navigation systems available at this time didn’t consider the needs of that user group. For example information about the condition of ways and streets, a description of intersections and details about distance and bearing of the next routing point often were missing. Of course the client application must be accessible to assistive technology like screen reading software too. In case of the Android operating system that’s Talkback.

2. Meanwhile there existed solutions especially for blind and visual impaired users too. These were often apps for the iPhone operating system. But , none of them offered a routing functionality. Instead they helped to get an overview about points of interest in the user’s surrounding. Other aids were outdated or very expensive.

Based on this findings, a concept for a routing based navigation aid for blind and visual impaired users was created as part of a diploma thesis at the TU Dresden. You can find further information about the thesis here. After the research was completed, the concept was implemented and is ready for download now.