helionsmoker / brat

An encoder/decoder for braille symbols (⢹⠁ ⣏⡇ ⡟)

(Br)aille P(at)tern

A tool for converting braille symbols to and from binary numbers.

Use Cases

• Accessibility: create Braille symbols that can be printed out and used to label objects or identify locations in a space.

• Art and Design: create custom Braille patterns that can be incorporated into artwork or design projects.

• ⢹⠁⣟ ⡱⢎ ⢹⠁ converters: make physical embossed printout using Braille symbols

Usage

To encode braille symbols, simply pass in the binary string patterns that represent the symbol:

python brat.py 10001111 1 
# ⢹ ⠁
python brat.py --by-row 101011 101
# ⠧ ⠃
python brat.py --by-row --format 1011 111011
# 1011 -> ⠓
# 111011 -> ⠯
python brat.py -a A B C
# ⡁ ⡃ ⡉

Trailing zeros can be omitted.

To decode braille symbols to their corresponding binary pattern, pass in the symbols to brat.

python brat.py -e ⣒ ⡱ 
# 01010101 10010110
python brat.py --by-row --encode ⣒ ⡱ 
# 00110011 10010110

Installation

Simply clone the GitHub repository you should be good to go!

git clone https://github.com/your-username/brat.git
cd brat
python brat.py 1011101

Logic

There are 8 bits that represent the possible positions where a dot may be present in a Braille symbol: 4 bits for the first column, and 4 for the last. A value of 1 indicates the presence of a dot, while 0 indicates the absence.

In total, there are 256 braille symbols (2^8), so their binary values range from 00000000 to 11111111. This allows for fast conversion between the symbols and their binary value.

Future plans

• Add support for decoding symbols
• Add support for ascii converters
• Use argparse instead of manual parsing
• Add suport for text to embossed braille printout
• Add pip support

Contributing

Contributions are highly appreciated! If you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to open an issue or pull request.