Audio Blind Aid

I used to be well known (perhaps still am) for electronic design. A number of my concepts were developed commercially after I sold the copyrights (which is not the same as patenting something). Here's a concept that I didn't get as far as a copyright, yet I think it still deserves to be developed if it hasn't been already. It was a device which gave the blind an "audio picture" of what was in front of them. But I shelved the idea when I ran into problems with the vertical plane (for instance, "picturing" stairs going down). But looking back, I should have partially developed this one, and let others run with the remaining problems.