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The 22-year-old senior in electrical engineering at Penn State the Behrend College in Erie has become the primary inventor of a process that might eventually enable the blind to "see" digital photographs. It was not something Donnell set out to do but, like many inventions, came about through a long set of circumstances.

"About a year ago, I was looking at trying to get an internship and was going through the Career Development Center at school," said Donnell. "They send out a lot of emails about a lot of different things, and there was one for a 10-week program called Research Experience for Undergraduates."

"I had been applying for just about everything, so I thought I would take a stab at it," said Donnell.

The application process itself proved to be a major challenge, including writing multiple papers, numerous letters of reference, a resume and transcripts.

"I applied in early February, and didn't hear anything from them for a long time. Then in late April, I got word that I was among the 10 students selected from around the country," said Donnell. "I was still in the dark about exactly what I was going to be doing."

The 10-week program was to be held at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) starting on June 6. Donnell drove the 600 hundred miles and spent the first week getting acquainted with the other students and their advisors. At the end of that week, his advisor, Dr. Larry Fennigkoh, a MSOE professor, gave him his research assignment.

"My project was called 'Photographs for the Blind,' and it was something really different," said Donnell.

While the blind have Braille for reading and specially made maps with raised lines, there is nothing of the sort for pictures and images.

"It was really kind of controversial too, because there were a lot of people saying why do the blind need to 'see' a photograph, when they don't know what a tree ever looked like," said Donnell. "But there were others who say that a lot of blind people were not born blind, and they would know what things look like, and would like to see pictures of their kids."

The project would involve using a process called rapid prototyping, a state-of-the-art system that takes computer aided design programs and actually produces a three dimensional product. The process, Donnell said, was largely funded by major corporations like Milwaukee-based Harley Davidson.

"With a Word document, you output to a printer," explained Donnell. "With rapid prototyping, the output is to a machine that uses a special type of paper, wax or plastic. So, for example, if Harley Davidson has something they want to include on a bike, but is not too sure about, they can input the information and it will produce an exact sized copy of the item."

Donnell said one of the most promising future uses for rapid prototyping will be the ability to take an MRI image of a damaged knee or similar body part, and be able to produce an individualized replica for replacement.

For Donnell, the big challenge was to figure out a system that would raise a digital photograph into a three dimensional piece so that a blind person could run there fingers over it and 'read' the image. While existing computer aided design programs worked with three dimensional objects, there was nothing that would take a two dimensional photograph and make it three dimensions.

"I dilly dallied around for about four weeks working with different ideas, and I thought there would be a program out there I could use," said Donnell. "I didn't realize there was really nothing available and that I was going to have to write a program. There were really a lot of issues to deal with. I had opened up a can of worms."

Fortunately for Donnell, another student in the program discovered some help did exist, though crude and untried.

"Josh Mueller, a senior computer science major at MSOE found this program that had been put on the Internet that we could partially use," said Donnell. "Ironically, it had been developed by a professor at Carnegie Mellon right here in Pittsburgh."

The program itself had been something that was partially developed but was full of bugs. It only dealt with portions of the process Donnell was working on, so he was faced with filling in the holes and trying to get the bugs out.

"It covered about two thirds of what I needed, so I wrote the processing part myself," said Donnell. "Josh is a really brilliant guy, and he helped with parts of it as well."

After a lot of hours of writing and re-writing, Donnell had his program. But because of the short time frame of the project, he was only able to produce and test three examples.

"The tests on a simple picture of a playing card were pretty good," said Donnell. "But the pictures of a tree and of a ghost town were very tough and showed the need for more work."

Donnell said he came up with an idea to add an embedded circuit powered by a miniature battery, enabling the picture to essentially "talk" to the reader. Unfortunately, the ten week project was virtually over and such ideas would have to wait.

"The program is something that MSOE is very interested in pursuing," said Donnell. "They are trying to get a development grant from the National Health Foundation."

As primary inventor, MSOE has asked Donnell to make a presentation before the National Institute of Health in Virginia in an effort to secure funding for further development.

If successful in getting money, Donnell said he would like to continue working on the project, but would only do so from school in Erie or home in Pittsburgh.

"I really don't want to move to Milwaukee," said Donnell. "My home and my roots are here, and I would like to stay here, so I will probably have limited involvement going forward."

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