A downloadable tool for Windows

BrushTone is an accessible Paint Tool for the blind and visually impared that allows users to view, modify, and create images purely using sound.

So, how does it work? Each pixel is represented by 3 values, Red, Green, and Blue. These RGB values are in turn represented by 3 sequential beeps, the pitch of each beep represents how bright each color value is, the higher the pitch, the brighter the color, the lower the pitch, the darker the color.

It has a variety of tools and functions, including but not limited to:

Pencil, Line, Square, Filled Square, Circle, Filled Circle, Flood Fill, Select, Cut, Copy, Paste, Flip, Rotate, Stretch, Skew, Invert Colors, Grey Scale, Adjust RGB, Cycle Colors, RGB Explode, RGB Condense, Slice, Stitch, and Alpha Channels with an Alpha Paint Mode.

It comes equipped with a window scan function, including Peter Meijers Image to Sound algorithm, as well as animation playback. Compatible formats include PNG, BMP, JPG, and GIF.

Version 1.1 now includes Braille Display support.

Version 1.2.5 now includes Screen Reader support for NVDA, Jaws, Windows-Eyes, SuperNova, System Access, and ZoomText.

If you encounter any performance issues, try to Disable Display Scaling on High DPI Settings and run it in compatibility mode for WinXP SP3.

Tagsaudio-only, binaural, Hand-drawn, Pixel Art, tool
Average sessionA few minutes
InputsKeyboard, Mouse
AccessibilityBlind friendly


BrushTone-v1.3.3-x32.zip 16 MB


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How do I draw? I am confused by your description of the pencil mode. I select pencil and hit the space bar. Do I move the mouse or what?

Drawing is done on a 2D grid similar to conventional drawing tools, BrushTone starts with a one pixel sized brush in the lower left corner of the screen. You can move the brush with the keyboard arrow keys, which is the preferred method, or the mouse, then press either the space bar or the left mouse button to paint the currently selected color to the canvas, move the cursor to another adjacent pixel and change it, etc. Note that the mouse doesn't work with any other tool except the pencil tool. You can also pan the view window around using the W,A,S,D keys in order to draw across other parts of the canvas. The Z key can tell you the current color under the cursor so you can check if the color changes, and you can press the C key to tell the exact position of the cursor on the canvas.


Many thanks. Could you please add this superb explanation to the documentation?

Hmm, the external documentation doesn't seem to mention the arrow keys or the mouse, though the internal documentation in BrushTone sort of does... Oops! Thanks for pointing that out, I've fixed the inconsistences and elaborated a bit in the external documentation on how drawing works.


I downloaded brushtone 1.3.1.

With jaws 2018 enabled, it doesn't work properly. When I press arrow keys, cursor is always to 0,0 choords.

How can I create animations?

Hmm, thats when pressing C for coordinates yes? Does it give the same behavior in NVDA? What operating system and hardware are you using?

To create animations create or load the desired frame images into brushtone, pressing tab can allow you to toggle between them. Then press F1 for the canvas menu and select "save image". Enter a name and select "gif" as the format. Brushtone will then take all the images currently loaded in order and save them as a gif animation. Note that the images should be the same size, and the number of  colors in the images will be automatically reduced to 255, so some detail may be lost in high quality images. Also note that gifs will not save with transparency.

With NVDA all works correctly. I'm using windows 10, with jaws 2018.

Well thats some good news. BrushTone relies on the Tolk library for screen reader support, I've updated the drivers with v1.3.2 so hopefully that helps solve the issue.

Thanks! Are you using Tolk library? I'm using Tolk with python. Before knowing BrushTone, I was attempting to create a program for image manipulation in a BlindFriendly Version. I've some ideas and BrushTone can be a preliminary step. I seen 3daudimesh, but I don't have .stl file to try it and, with 3daudimesh I can't create 3d graphics; so, I don't know how it works.

BrushTone is the first version, I've been working on a new tool as time allows which will include a number of improvements and new features. There are a few other drawing tool's i've found around that you may also be interested in: SVGDraw01, BlindPaint, and TactileView. If your interested in any python examples or source code for OpenAL or Peter Meijers Sonifer method I have a bunch freely available in a repository.

As for AudiMesh3D, its more of a preliminary tool for only viewing 3D models, when you start it there's a default cube you can view so you don't strictly need a 3D model to use it. The interface is similar to that in BrushTone, though you can rotate, scale, and pan around the 3D model however you like. Its largely meant to be used with OpenSCAD, a free 3D CAD modeling program that uses text based scripting, there's a description in AudiMesh3D's documentation on how to use it with it. Essentially, what you can do is write a text based script file, then compile it into an STL file on the command line with OpenSCAD, then view it with AudiMesh3D.

Also, if you haven't already you should consider dropping by the audiogames.net community.