After slogging for years, professor develops a unique software

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 8

After toiling for around four years, a city-based professor has finally staked claim to his self-designed software for the convenience of hearing impaired persons. Dr Lalit Goyal was busy designing the software that translates English texts to Indian Sign language (ISL) synthetic animations. He recently got a copyright of it.

The software developed is capable of converting simple English sentences to Indian sign language (used by the hearing impaired) with more than 85 per cent accuracy. He claims that the software is the first and the only working model in India which can convert the English text to ISL in real time.

The system uses the computer generated animations which increases the speed of the system to manifolds. According to Dr Lalit Goyal, the software has been clubbed with a bilingual dictionary (English word to ISL animation gloss) of more than 2,400 words that were created using the videos made by an institute for the deaf and dumb at Coimbatore.

Goyal said, “Sign language was the natural language used by hearing impaired people and they use their hand shapes, hand orientation, hand locations, hand movement, face expressions and body movements in three dimensional space for communication with others. Therefore, this computer generated animation would make the communication process easier by converting the text into the sign language grammar.”

The software, “Translator for english text to ISL synthetic animations for simple sentences” was prepared under the guidance of Dr Vishal Goyal from the Department of Computer Science, Punjabi University Patiala. 

The software was also demonstrated at the deaf and dumb school Saifdipur, Patiala on World Disability Day where it was appreciated hugely. Col Kulwinder Singh, principal of the school said, the software was essentially useful for the school going children and after improvement, it would become more useful for normal people as well while communicating with deaf and dumb children.

Dr Lalit Goyal also said, “The research work has not stopped and we were going to improve the system to deal with complex English sentences which would further improve the efficiency of the system. Also, we are involved in many other projects which could be useful for the differently-abled persons.” 

He also said, “In this context, the team was in contact with Indian Singh Language Research and Training centre (ISLRTC) to get an MOU so that with the guidance and expertise of the professional sign language interpreters, they could improve the existing system and start new projects.”

Currently, Dr Vishal Goyal and Dr Lalit Goyal are also working upon  converting railway announcement into signs for the hearing impaired people.