Patent ID: 8870367

Claim:
A method for printing an image to convey information to both a sighted person and a visually-impaired person, comprising: printing an image including image content on a receiver medium using one or more visible colorants, the printed image being viewable by the sighted person, wherein the image content includes photographic image content, artwork image content or graphical image content; defining a vocabulary of different tactile patterns, each tactile pattern having a defined meaning; and providing tactile patterns on the surface of the printed image, the tactile pattern provided at a particular location being selected from the predefined vocabulary such that when a visually-impaired person touches the tactile pattern at the particular location, the tactile pattern conveys information about the corresponding image content at the particular location to the visually-impaired person; wherein the image is segmented into segmented image regions corresponding to particular types of image content, each segmented image region being defined by an area surrounded by a region boundary, and wherein the tactile patterns in the defined vocabulary include predefined homogeneous texture patterns that are used to fill the areas within the region boundaries of the segmented image regions.