Relief characters by micro capsule paper

Micro capsule paper has been developed by Yonezawa [6, 7] for tactile pattern. To learn printed Chinese characters (called "Kanji" in Japanese), several relief characters have been prepared to enable the blind to study these complicated printed characters by this micro capsule paper. All prepared characters (alphabet, braille patterns, Kanji) data for micro capsule paper are converted PostScript language[1] by a developed tool. Although this matter has been thought of a local topic in Kanji cultural area, hidden problems containing some common subjects exist in all forms of written language. There are several communication tools (braille, telephone, audio equipments, etc...) for the blind, especially Optacon (optical to tactile converter) is one of a few equipment which reads visual information. To realize the original printed characters is an essential matter when the blind use the Optacon. In any case, people who do not have basic knowledge about printed characters can not understand anything. And it is important for the blind to understand written language, so original character learning is a matter of great essentials. However learning Kanji characters is a Japanese problem, the research and discussion in this paper also contain practical applications and common problems for other written language.