When @RealIvanSanchez visited Edinburgh last month we did the tourist thing together, and stumbled upon this sort-of haptic map in the corner of the square outside the museums, by Princes Street gardens.

The pictures below are of what is meant to be a 3D map that would give a blind person an impression of the scale and scope of Edinburgh and the beautiful built things in it. It gives an impression only; it's not an accurate map of Edinburgh streets, not reliable for building a mental model with.

The plaque announces its purpose in Braille and text; but the labels on the map are just text, not braille. So this is more of a pseudo haptic map.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/HaptoRender - this is an OpenStreetmap project that will produce static maps, repeatable 3D print-outs, focusing on small areas.

One could print out map tiles and stick them together - spread out in a warehouse sized space an area like the centre of Madrid. Building heights could be approximate, markup of storeys and building templates rather than aspire to complete 3D realistic detail.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tactile_map

I wonder about the experience of building a mental model of space, of someone who has been always blind, do these models actually help, or help some more than others, then why?