Eyesight is only one of the ways our brain gets information about our surroundings. The combination of senses such as sounds, smells, taste and touch engages our imagination.  People who are blind may not have sight but they certainly have vision.  They simply ‘see’, in their minds eye, differently than people with sight.

Here at Beyond Vision we continually challenge ourselves with “What if?” questions.  What if we could help the blind ‘see’ things they could not?  Thanks to generous donations from our supporters who share our inspiration, Beyond Vision is excited to announce that our new 3D printing capability is operational.  This new technology allows us to convert visual images into three dimensional objects.  We now have the ability to use the sense of touch to show a person without sight what a snowflake, basketball court, or bar graph looks like.  Our visually impaired co-workers can conceptualize our company’s emergency exit plan and our engineers can hold the physical model of any Computer Aided Design (CAD) model.  This is a video clip of one of our employees being able to visualize a 3D printed snow flake, for example.

Beyond Vision employee feeling 3d printed snowflake.

We are already producing rapid prototypes and improving fixtures to increase accessibility and make work more efficient.  For example, this is a photograph of a fixture we 3D printed to make it accessible to apply a label to SKILCRAFT tool kits we will soon produce for the government via the AbilityOne program.  The CAD model of the fixture is on our engineer’s computer screen in the background and he is holding the fully functional 3D printed fixture in the foreground.

We look forward to using 3D printing for our own internal purposes as well as potentially enhancing services to our customers.  Offering 3D rapid prototyping as a commercial service could lead to a new source of revenue and blind job growth. Finally, if there is sufficient demand, we are planning to make our 3D printing capability available to sister agencies who are employing or training people who are visually impaired and blind.   Please let us know if you may be interested..

Conventional thought assumes people who are blind cannot do things as effectively or efficiently as their sighted counterpart – we reject that premise. Beyond Vision is constantly seeking new ways to challenge the status quo definition of what people can do who are blind or have vision loss.  Lack of sight does not define a person’s lifestyle or what they can accomplish.  3D printing will help us help, “The Blind See…Beyond Vision”.