Abstract: This paper presents a review on vision aided systems
and proposes an approach for visual rehabilitation using stereo vision
technology. The proposed system utilizes stereo vision, image
processing methodology and a sonification procedure to support
blind navigation. The developed system includes a wearable
computer, stereo cameras as vision sensor and stereo earphones, all
moulded in a helmet. The image of the scene infront of visually
handicapped is captured by the vision sensors. The captured images
are processed to enhance the important features in the scene in front,
for navigation assistance. The image processing is designed as model
of human vision by identifying the obstacles and their depth
information. The processed image is mapped on to musical stereo
sound for the blind-s understanding of the scene infront. The
developed method has been tested in the indoor and outdoor
environments and the proposed image processing methodology is
found to be effective for object identification.