Does it really have to cost so much: Custom building an electronic magnifier.

As an assistive technology advocate, it has been a part of my job to write up a requisition form for devices in the lab, and perhaps due to the ethnic/cultural heritage; the price tag on those devices simply did not make sense, and of course, buying them at those prices made even less sense to me. Although I have to concede, devices built by Enhanced Vision really is in a league of their own, but still, how does one expect a $10.00 per hour wage earning lower middle class person to afford $2800.00 device affectionately named "Merlin" or "Jordy"? Even naming them Chi-Hung Luke Hsieh wouldn't make them more affordable!


When my supervisor saw the 13 years old webcam that I have lying around in my office, he asked me if I could turn it into an electronic magnifier using a Windows computer and USB port. The technology involved really isn't rocket science; as a matter of fact, Bierly Trademark has a USB based monomouse magnifier selling at about $500 a piece, and Carson Optical Incorporated has a TV model for $69.00; so my response to him was, "Beside Optical zooming and autofocus, the rest is just software." That statement effectively commenced the experimental project codenamed Webcam. (I told you it wasn't rocket science!)

My choice of webcam fell onto Logitech Webcam Pro 900; one of the higher end webcam that has x 4 optical zooming capacity and autofocus. It even comes with Carl Zeiss lens and a built in microphone. Amazon.com sells them for around $70.00 a piece.

The prototype beta was designed to hang the webcam on a stand and use it as CCTV, (Prototype Alpha was the 13 years old webcam that we knew would not work). The problem with prototype beta was that the 4 x optical zooming simply wasn't enough for it to function as CCTV Magnifier, and purchasing a camera with higher optical zooming capacity would mean battery powered digital camera that costs $250.00 or more. (Merlin costs $2700.00 for a reason.)



I knew I wanted autofocus for a reason! All I had to do then was bring the camera closer to the paper and we have Prototype Gamma, which consist of wedging the camera into a circular lunchbox and poking a hole on the other side for the USB cable to go through. Prototype Gamma mimicked the Bierly Monomouse instead of the CCTV.



The next question was which software to use for colour inversion. Colour filtering technology has been popular for as least, 15 years, I distinctively remembered playing with a software that did it in 1998. After trying out more than several trial versions, demo versions, and free versions of video software, my choice fell on software made by an Australian company, called NCH software, named Debut Video Capture, which cost $39.00.

So the end bill for this exercise is $70 for the camera, $39 for the software and $2 for the lunchbox. Of course, if one has the money, it's better to buy professionally designed devices like Merlin, Jordy, Ruby, etc.. However this exercise does show, low income persons can have personal access to electronic magnifier with colour inversion for a little more than $100.00

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