Tactile Book Covers

Project Description

A Tactile Book is a book that is read with the fingers. Various media is used to convey the media through touch, most commonly braille. This project brings life to book covers, which are images that cannot be translated with braille. Instead, with 3-D Printing, we have translated Book Covers to be accessible for visually impaired students.

Final Designs

One red print and one orange print of the final cover, both with raised designs in white

Out of My Heart

Designers: Saanvi Vavilala, Savaas Iqbal, & Nidhi Sakpal

September - November 2022

Download the .stl File

I Survived

Designer: Dylan

September - November 2022

Download the .stl File

Out of My Heart: Design Process

Upon a request from St. Joseph's School for the Blind, Saanvi, Nidhi, and Sav are developing a 3D-printed tactile cover for the book Out of My Heart by Sharon M Draper.

Below are the individual phases in developing this tactile book cover.

Final Designs

Out of My Heart: Design Process

Additional Photos & Videos!

I Survived: Final Designs

I Survived Tactile Book Spine

Step 0

The official illustration for Sharon M Draper's novel titled Out of My Heart, featuring an open jar with fireflies flying out.

Original illustrated cover; Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper is the sequel to the bestseller book Out of My Mind.

Step 1

A screenshot from Tinkercad, a 3D design website, of a rendition of the cover with a jar, fireflies, and pointed stars.

Initial TinkerCAD design. Experimented between a realistic or icon firefly. A jar icon was used while the lid was made from scratch using TinkerCAD shapes. Jar and firefly outlines sourced from the Noun Project.

Step 2

A screenshot from Tinkercad of the improved design.

2nd version of TinkerCAD file. Edited text to be completely raised instead of inset and adjusted the text placement to leave room for Braille. Also rounded the page's rectangular edges.

Step 3

The 3D printed version of the Tinkercad design, printed in solid orange filament.

First 3D-printed test print. Had errors during printing due to hidden shapes in the TinkerCAD file that interfered with the print; errors also resulted in author's name printing too low on the page.

Step 4

Tinkercad screenshot of cover, now with braille added

3rd version of TinkerCAD file. Added braille under the text using OnShape. Generated braille in OpenSCAD.

Step 5

3D printed cover with red base and yellow design

Horizontal Print: no supports are necessary for the embedded shapes. However, the braille prints at a lower quality. This iteration was also printed smaller than in Step 2 and includes contrasting colors.

Step 6

Vertical Print: supports are needed for embedded shapes, some are difficult to remove. Braille prints with higher quality, but overall design is lower quality and it's not possible to have contrasting colors.

Step 7

Tinkercad screenshot of design with some pointed stars and some flat stars

4th and final version of TinkerCAD file. Added various types of stars with to get feedback on which star design is best. Fireflies were also raised to improve visibility. Star is sourced from the Noun Project.

Additional Photos & Videos!

3D printed "Out of my Heart" tactile book cover. The backing is orange, while the text, outlines, and braille are white.

IMG_9705.MOV

Image from St. Joseph's School for the blind. Two children are touching the tactile book covers, to give feedback on our designs.

Contact Us! - Out of My Heart

Have any questions, comments, or inquiries about or work or this project? Fill out the form below to let us know!

I Survived: Final Designs

I Survived Tactile Book Spine

The tactile book spine was something that came after the tactical cover. it came to me that the books were still on a self and would be hiding there faces and it might be easier to be able to use something on the spine so that when your looking for a certain book you don't have to keep picking off the shelf to find the book that you want and could easily skim your finger along the spine to find the book that you want.

I Survived Tactile Book Cover

The tactile book cover was something requested by the students at the the St. Josephs hospital. The I Survived serious was extremely popular. Using tinker cad I created the book cover from scratch using an image of the book as a reference while creating everything form the mountains to the little columns on the side.