Head Up Display – The AutoGuide, Car and Driver, and other publications broke the news that Toyota has been developing a 3D HUD (head up display). They reported that Toyota has been working on this new HUD for two years, together with engineers from Silicon Valley. The new HUD is aimed at improving drivers safety by visually identifying safety concerns and giving clearer directions to drivers not familiar with an area.
Toyota calls this approach a 3D HUD as the overlayed information is mapped to real world objects to accurately show where to turn and where potential danger may lie. There is no need to wear additional glasses for the 3D effect.
This 3D effect refers entirely to the 3D mapping aspect of the HUD and not to a stereoscopic 3D display. Nevertheless, a perfect 3D mapping requires an eye or head tracking display to project the augmented reality part precisely.
The following image shows how the HUD works.
Source: AutoGuide.com
There are, of course, all the current information parts of a HUD, as well as additional information such as identifying a car that may cause a collision and where there are available parking spaces. This can be seen in the next image.
Source: Car and Driver
The red warning for potential danger may add an additional layer of driving safety, while the open parking space indicator could be a very popular application in any large city. Thinking of New York and its crazy schedule of parking rules based on alternate side street parking and a confusing holiday schedule, I don’t know how the system would be able to know where it is possible to park legally and where not. Nevertheless, it is a a great idea.
Toyota seems to have signed off on the idea and as Autoevolution says, they are working on making the system fit into a car instead of occupying the complete roof. It seems that we have to wait a couple more years until stress-less parking is available to all of us. – Norbert Hildebrand
