Team Name
Team Sign Off
Timeline
Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
Students
- Tommy Ngo
- Alexander Rios
- Mark Thomasson
- Stephen Gill
Sponsor
United State of America Corps of Engineer (USACE)
Abstract
Our application will help non-english fluent park visitors with information about the United State Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) parks. This includes but is not limited to: translating information about the area at a given sign, welcoming information or facts about the park, and the safety rules that must be followed to give visitors the best experience possible. The app should be accessible to everyone there that visits these parks as long as they have a mobile phone or device.
Background
America is a very culturally diverse country, with many either not speaking English at all, or having English as a second language. Therefore it is of utmost importance that those with trouble reading English can get access to a translated version of English text, especially if the text has critical safety warnings. Before our application, translators would have to be on location, or visitors would have to rely on image to text translation applications on mobile devices. This approach has become unviable for multiple reasons: many parks do not have access to the internet in nature, translators cannot be physically available for every possible language, and many applications do not support tribal languages.
Our project is made to counteract these previous issues by focusing on ease of use and simplicity for both the user and administrators. A simple UI will be used to allow for anyone to navigate and reach their desired translated board, whilst an admin application will allow for board creation by manually typing in english text, to eliminate the issue of ambiguity with image to text translations. It is our goal that this application can help non-english speakers have a safer and more enjoyable experience at USACE parks.
Project Requirements
1. Translation of Signs:
This is the main component and purpose of our application, it entails providing a translated version of any sign in the system in any user specified language.
2. Quick Response (QR) Code:
This requirement is necessary for our users to access our application in the intended way. The code will be unique to each board and thus be attached to the board itself.
3. Language Picker:
This is the way a user is able to choose which language they want their sign to be translated into, and it will be represented as a drop down box listing all available languages.
4. Sign Upload:
This allows the signs created by the sign maker to be uploaded to the database. This process should be intuitive such that it is easy to upload the signs in the correct sign page.
5. Database:
This is where all our data is stored including images for the frontend as well as where the frontend is loaded in from.
6. Backend Language:
The backend language is the key factor in getting what we want from our database to show up on the screen for visitors to view. The sign maker also relies on the backend language to determine how signs are made, and the sign upload feature makes sure that the correct image is uploaded to the right location on the database.
7. Administrative Login:
This is a login page for administrative users to access the backend. The login page would require username and password for authentication and security. Password complexity will be medium to high comprising a mixture of upper case letters, lower case letters, and special characters. Passwords would be a minimum of eight characters.
8. Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol
User’s request from browser and response from backend would be secured and encrypted using secure
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS). This is to ensure that eavesdroppers and hackers are unable to
intercept transmitted messages which is important for the admin login to remain uncompromised.
9. Updating a Park Sign:
From the admin login as specified in the security section, there should be a way to update the park signs in one or multiple languages. From the sign page, it will have two options when clicking on the sign on the map. One is the original option of going to the translation site. The other involves updating that park sign labeled “update”. After clicking the update button, the icon itself on the map can be edited just like what was described in the Updating the Sign Finder section. After that though, there is an option button that will allow you to change what will be displayed on the sign translation page. In there, each section of the park sign such as the title, the subtitle, the rules, the image text, and the images will be modifiable for park ranger needs.
10. Sign Finder
The website should provide a way for those who do not have access to the QR code of the board to get to the board. This is done through the state, park, and board pathway. The user will find the state first, then the park within the state, and then the board within that park. Sign Finder must also be intuitive to navigate, so it should have features like filters that narrow done the parks on the screen.
System Overview
At a high level, our project will give non-English speaking park visitors the ability to read and understand park safety signs in their desired language. We will be utilizing QR codes that will be physically attached to the safety sign itself. After the user scans the QR code with their mobile device they will be redirected to either the already installed app or to their respective app store to install the app first. After the app has been launched, the unique QR code on the given board will determine which board within the app to show the user. After the user selects their desired language, the user will be shown a fully translated board in their chosen language.
For how the fully translated board image is given to the app, that will be handled through our board creator program we will create for the USACE team. First off, for all text input in the board program, USACE can input the text into a text box. This text box will have a drop-down box to select if the English text is to be translated to another language. Not only that, USACE does not have to type in the text themselves, instead, they can take a picture of the board and have the program scan that text into the text box. In this way, they can quickly scan in text for their ever-changing boards in the parks.
Here, the board will be broken up into different parts: the board, the title text, the subsection text,the rule text, images, and image text. For creating the boards, first, they will have to select a board style.Then, they will have a text box where they will input title text. This title text will be bold and will be the biggest text of the text options. Default placement will be near the top of the board, but there will be an option to move around the title text. Next, the subsection text can be chosen. It has roughly the same process as the title text, but it will not be bold, it will be slightly smaller than the title text, and its default placement will be under the title text. Moving on, there will be rule text. Rule text follows a similar process to before, but it will be numbered, it will have the smallest font of the other types, and it needs to be placed on the board. Following standard text that goes on the board will be images and image text. Images are standard as it will be uploaded to the program from the file system, and it can be resized, moved, and rotated. Image text is text that can be colored, have a variable font, and can be manipulated to look natural on an image. An example of this manipulation would be image text that fits the arc of a circle on a water tube.
Also, the digital board can then be translated into another language by clicking an option similar to the one offered in the text boxes. This will help allow for quickly making boards in different languages. Of course, an algorithm will be there to help keep the text on the board, and, if absolutely needed to, the board creator can go back and readjust text.
Results
Pictures of Results:
Video of Results
Website:
https://usacetranslation.web.app/
Future Work
1. Tribal Translator / Built-in Translator:
Using the Tribal Translation service, there should be a way for USACE members to automatically be able to translate text from English to a chosen tribal language. In general, we should be able to take a piece of text in English and translate it to any language chosen by USACE without the use of APIs. This will likely involve Machine translation, which is a project within itself.
2. Sign Maker:
Sign maker allows either USACE in the future or our team to create our own digital version of a physical sign allowing us to directly pull text and the locations of individual text blocks. Using the direct text and locations we can then pass it into the translation API and store the translated versions into a database to be retrieved by a call from the user at a later time.
3. Works Offline:
Currently, the Sign Translation website cannot translate offline because it requires a connection to Google Translate. Work can be done such that the website can still provide translated content offline as well. An example would be through Sign Maker as the translated images can be cached.
Project Files
Project Charter (link)
System Requirements Specification (link)
Architectural Design Specification (link)
Detailed Design Specification (link)
Poster (link)
Code(link)
Guide for the website(link)
References
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[4]Manel Mena, Antonio Corral, Luis Iribarne, and Javier Criado. A progressive web application based on microservices combining geospatial data and the internet of things. IEEE Access, 7:104577â104590, 2019.
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