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New Augmented Reality HUD Is a Fighter Jet Display for Your Car

39 points by Libertatea 13y ago

Silhouette 13y ago
I think there's huge potential in this kind of technology as an extension of normal driver vision, particularly combined with the kinds of specialised cameras we're starting to see fitted to premium vehicles now (night vision, radar) and the image recognition tech to go with them (lane discipline warnings, parking assistance, hazards approaching the driving line ahead). Just yesterday, there was a 130 vehicle crash here in the UK (sadly, that number was not a typo) after thick, low fog moved in over a bridge that is normally a major high-speed route. If everyone's vehicle had been fitted with technology that detected reduced traction due to the greasy road surface, how close vehicles in front really were and how abruptly they were slowing down even if fog was obscuring them, and how fast each driver's own vehicle was really going, and if a HUD had then flashed up the essential information and highlighted the insufficient stopping distances drivers were leaving, there might have been many fewer injuries, much less damage, and much less disruption treating the injured and recovering disabled vehicles. While yesterday's weather conditions were unusually severe for the UK, similar arguments would apply all the time at night for anyone driving on high speed or bendy out-of-town roads. On the other hand, was I the only person who watched that video and got completely distracted by the zooming route map towards the end? If I were driving for real, I think it would be very difficult to concentrate properly on the road ahead with all of that activity going on. Avoiding information overload and maintaining driver concentration seem like serious concerns for this kind of system, but as a UI guy it looks like an awesome project to work on.
- jrabone 13y ago
  I think there's too much going on in that HUD for the average driver to parse. I'm also unconvinced by the choice of elevation perspective for the route guidance - even though the display is above the road, it feels less confusing to have a "birds-eye" perspective on the route guidance. As the Sheppey pile-up demonstrates, there's a lot of people who simply suck at driving - specifically maintaining sufficient braking distance and NOT cutting into someone else's braking distance when changing lanes (in poor conditions that space is for ME to stop in, not for YOU to slide into). As it is, I'm conscious that I need to be aware of the car behind as well as the car in front. The only way it'll work is if the car brakes for you, and then everyone has to have that technology.
roc 13y ago
> "Most HUDs fail for one reason" And that reason is: most people, for most trips, just don't need it. [1] Driving a passenger car is simple and boring. That's why people distract themselves. That's why they go on mental auto-pilot and will readily admit they weren't consciously aware of how they got from one place to another. Even if and when that data is front and center, it gets tuned out with everything else. [1] Turn by turn is great, but it's explicitly for the minority of cases. (business travelers, outliers, notwithstanding)
wavesounds 13y ago
I've had this idea for a while. But why stop at turn by turn stuff? Why not put upcoming traffic there, your text messages, the controls for the radio and air-conditioning. Heck get rid of the dashboard all together. Just put some buttons on the steering wheel and display everything on the HUD. I've been in a car that drove up on the sidewalk because the driver was fiddling with the radio. This seems much safer to me.
jgrahamc 13y ago
I think that HUDs in cars are a step backwards. For my driving I like to be able to see clearly through the windscreen at all the things that are going on around me. For that reason I keep the windscreen clean and I don't like having any windscreen mounted things (like a cellphone or GPS). I'm much happier in one of two modes: looking through the glass at things around me (road, cars, people, bikes, etc.) and looking at an instrument for data (speedometer, GPS, fuel, etc.) I can glance at my GPS and know what's going on when I need to. Similarly, if I need a quick speed check. I really don't want these things in my field of vision when looking through the window. I think a HUD with any sort of motion of changing data would be incredibly distracting.
- Avshalom 13y ago
  Well it's balancing a couple more moving things in your field of view against not looking at the road I don't know if the results are in yet but I suspect (with about medium certainty) keeping your eyes on the road is likely to win.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  I expressed similar concerns, but I think if some clever optics could overlay data "in place" onto the normal windscreen image there could be many practical applications. You could replace intrusive SatNav arrows with highlighting the actual driving line required as you look out at the road ahead. You could scan with a night vision camera and outline animals or other hazards in the road ahead that aren't yet within range of headlights. Maybe the vehicle ahead could be outlined in red and the distance to it displayed, if your car detected that under current driving conditions you were in danger of not being able to stop quickly enough should anything happen; as I mentioned in my other post, a similar technique would be very relevant if you couldn't actually see the next vehicle in front due to adverse weather but your on-board radar could pick it up.
  - joezydeco 13y ago
    "You could replace intrusive SatNav arrows with highlighting the actual driving line required as you look out at the road ahead" There's a company already doing this, the Pioneer HUD is kind of a rip of their concept: http://mvs.net/index.html http://mvs.net/index.html
touristtam 13y ago
turn by turn navigation works ok-ish in cities, but is quite rubbish in the country side, specially in region where the company owning the map data doesn't care much about streamed update. I have had CS experience for one of the two mentioned by pioneer as supported, and although they had recent changes, I seriously doubt the end user experience will be any nicer in the near future. I trust Google more than the product I provided support for not so long ago. Still nice to see someone trying to tackle the HUD in cars.
jacquesm 13y ago
High end BMW's have had something like this as an option (very expensive) for a while now. It's done in a much more elegant way than here in the article posted, the virtual distance the display is at is at roughly the same distance as the stuff in front of your car where your eyes are focused so there is no need to re-focus all the time. There are some pretty tricky optics involved in getting a light path of the right focal length in the room just under the windshield and the first part of the bonnet so the image appears at the right distance.
- jrabone 13y ago
  £800 option on the F30 in the UK - doesn't seem that much on a £43K 330d...
Groxx 13y ago
>Pioneer doesn’t identify the phones supported by NavGate, but it’s connected via USB so order an extra long cable now. ... sales have only been announced for Europe for £599 What? That's crazy. Mini projectors can be bought for about $200, and this could easily run a slow display over bluetooth or literally anything over wifi (then it's just a video stream to a mini projector with a special lens and a piece of glass). Good idea, bad idea, I wouldn't even consider this with that kind of price tag.
- sp332 13y ago
  If you want a projector, just buy a projector. This is a completely different product. Also, wifi is very noisy and crowded. I wouldn't depend on it.
ilaksh 13y ago
I have found myself holding my cell phone up in front of me while driving in order to read text messages. I had someone honk at me in that case, but I am sure that was safer than looking down and hiding the phone in my lap or something, because I was able to see the road behind the phone at the same time (not very well though and of course it was dangerous anyway). I think a HUD may become standard in most cars within a few years because its just much safer to have information or controls projected in your field of view than to have to look down or away from the road. And so many people have long commutes with emails or instant messages coming in that they would like to be able to monitor without taking their eyes off of the road. Even if you are changing your focus or attention slightly, the time to refocus on objects that are still in your field of vision or only a few degrees away is much less than what might be required to switch away from viewing a phone in your hand.
- throwawayLV 13y ago
  When you are driving you should be focused on what's happening outside of the car. Need to read a text message? - get off the road. 'Safer' doesn't mean safe.
- mikeash 13y ago
  It's safer to play chicken with a car than with a train, but that doesn't make it a good idea to do either. Keep your eyes on the road, not your phone. The person was right to honk at you.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  And so many people have long commutes with emails or instant messages coming in that they would like to be able to monitor without taking their eyes off of the road. Then perhaps they should consider taking public transportation? These kinds of HUD technologies could do a lot to make important driving information more easily accessible, but given the overwhelming evidence that trying to concentrate on remote communication while driving dramatically increases the risk of and damage caused by having an accident, it's hard to believe that shoving all that information between the driver's eyes and the road could ever make that kind of activity acceptably safe.
lifeformed 13y ago
I feel like this would introduce the same problems as captions do in movies: you spend the whole time staring at the captions/hud instead of the movie/outside. Except with movies, you just miss out on the cinematography, whereas with this, you get in an accident.

39 points by Libertatea 13y ago

I think there's huge potential in this kind of technology as an extension of normal driver vision, particularly combined with the kinds of specialised cameras we're starting to see fitted to premium vehicles now (night vision, radar) and the image recognition tech to go with them (lane discipline warnings, parking assistance, hazards approaching the driving line ahead). Just yesterday, there was a 130 vehicle crash here in the UK (sadly, that number was not a typo) after thick, low fog moved in over a bridge that is normally a major high-speed route. If everyone's vehicle had been fitted with technology that detected reduced traction due to the greasy road surface, how close vehicles in front really were and how abruptly they were slowing down even if fog was obscuring them, and how fast each driver's own vehicle was really going, and if a HUD had then flashed up the essential information and highlighted the insufficient stopping distances drivers were leaving, there might have been many fewer injuries, much less damage, and much less disruption treating the injured and recovering disabled vehicles. While yesterday's weather conditions were unusually severe for the UK, similar arguments would apply all the time at night for anyone driving on high speed or bendy out-of-town roads. On the other hand, was I the only person who watched that video and got completely distracted by the zooming route map towards the end? If I were driving for real, I think it would be very difficult to concentrate properly on the road ahead with all of that activity going on. Avoiding information overload and maintaining driver concentration seem like serious concerns for this kind of system, but as a UI guy it looks like an awesome project to work on.

jrabone 13y ago
I think there's too much going on in that HUD for the average driver to parse. I'm also unconvinced by the choice of elevation perspective for the route guidance - even though the display is above the road, it feels less confusing to have a "birds-eye" perspective on the route guidance. As the Sheppey pile-up demonstrates, there's a lot of people who simply suck at driving - specifically maintaining sufficient braking distance and NOT cutting into someone else's braking distance when changing lanes (in poor conditions that space is for ME to stop in, not for YOU to slide into). As it is, I'm conscious that I need to be aware of the car behind as well as the car in front. The only way it'll work is if the car brakes for you, and then everyone has to have that technology.

roc 13y ago

> "Most HUDs fail for one reason" And that reason is: most people, for most trips, just don't need it. [1] Driving a passenger car is simple and boring. That's why people distract themselves. That's why they go on mental auto-pilot and will readily admit they weren't consciously aware of how they got from one place to another. Even if and when that data is front and center, it gets tuned out with everything else. [1] Turn by turn is great, but it's explicitly for the minority of cases. (business travelers, outliers, notwithstanding)

wavesounds 13y ago

I've had this idea for a while. But why stop at turn by turn stuff? Why not put upcoming traffic there, your text messages, the controls for the radio and air-conditioning. Heck get rid of the dashboard all together. Just put some buttons on the steering wheel and display everything on the HUD. I've been in a car that drove up on the sidewalk because the driver was fiddling with the radio. This seems much safer to me.

jgrahamc 13y ago

I think that HUDs in cars are a step backwards. For my driving I like to be able to see clearly through the windscreen at all the things that are going on around me. For that reason I keep the windscreen clean and I don't like having any windscreen mounted things (like a cellphone or GPS). I'm much happier in one of two modes: looking through the glass at things around me (road, cars, people, bikes, etc.) and looking at an instrument for data (speedometer, GPS, fuel, etc.) I can glance at my GPS and know what's going on when I need to. Similarly, if I need a quick speed check. I really don't want these things in my field of vision when looking through the window. I think a HUD with any sort of motion of changing data would be incredibly distracting.

Avshalom 13y ago
Well it's balancing a couple more moving things in your field of view against not looking at the road I don't know if the results are in yet but I suspect (with about medium certainty) keeping your eyes on the road is likely to win.
Silhouette 13y ago
I expressed similar concerns, but I think if some clever optics could overlay data "in place" onto the normal windscreen image there could be many practical applications. You could replace intrusive SatNav arrows with highlighting the actual driving line required as you look out at the road ahead. You could scan with a night vision camera and outline animals or other hazards in the road ahead that aren't yet within range of headlights. Maybe the vehicle ahead could be outlined in red and the distance to it displayed, if your car detected that under current driving conditions you were in danger of not being able to stop quickly enough should anything happen; as I mentioned in my other post, a similar technique would be very relevant if you couldn't actually see the next vehicle in front due to adverse weather but your on-board radar could pick it up.
- joezydeco 13y ago
  "You could replace intrusive SatNav arrows with highlighting the actual driving line required as you look out at the road ahead" There's a company already doing this, the Pioneer HUD is kind of a rip of their concept: http://mvs.net/index.html http://mvs.net/index.html

touristtam 13y ago

turn by turn navigation works ok-ish in cities, but is quite rubbish in the country side, specially in region where the company owning the map data doesn't care much about streamed update. I have had CS experience for one of the two mentioned by pioneer as supported, and although they had recent changes, I seriously doubt the end user experience will be any nicer in the near future. I trust Google more than the product I provided support for not so long ago. Still nice to see someone trying to tackle the HUD in cars.

jacquesm 13y ago

High end BMW's have had something like this as an option (very expensive) for a while now. It's done in a much more elegant way than here in the article posted, the virtual distance the display is at is at roughly the same distance as the stuff in front of your car where your eyes are focused so there is no need to re-focus all the time. There are some pretty tricky optics involved in getting a light path of the right focal length in the room just under the windshield and the first part of the bonnet so the image appears at the right distance.

jrabone 13y ago
£800 option on the F30 in the UK - doesn't seem that much on a £43K 330d...

Groxx 13y ago

>Pioneer doesn’t identify the phones supported by NavGate, but it’s connected via USB so order an extra long cable now. ... sales have only been announced for Europe for £599 What? That's crazy. Mini projectors can be bought for about $200, and this could easily run a slow display over bluetooth or literally anything over wifi (then it's just a video stream to a mini projector with a special lens and a piece of glass). Good idea, bad idea, I wouldn't even consider this with that kind of price tag.

sp332 13y ago
If you want a projector, just buy a projector. This is a completely different product. Also, wifi is very noisy and crowded. I wouldn't depend on it.

ilaksh 13y ago

I have found myself holding my cell phone up in front of me while driving in order to read text messages. I had someone honk at me in that case, but I am sure that was safer than looking down and hiding the phone in my lap or something, because I was able to see the road behind the phone at the same time (not very well though and of course it was dangerous anyway). I think a HUD may become standard in most cars within a few years because its just much safer to have information or controls projected in your field of view than to have to look down or away from the road. And so many people have long commutes with emails or instant messages coming in that they would like to be able to monitor without taking their eyes off of the road. Even if you are changing your focus or attention slightly, the time to refocus on objects that are still in your field of vision or only a few degrees away is much less than what might be required to switch away from viewing a phone in your hand.

throwawayLV 13y ago
When you are driving you should be focused on what's happening outside of the car. Need to read a text message? - get off the road. 'Safer' doesn't mean safe.
mikeash 13y ago
It's safer to play chicken with a car than with a train, but that doesn't make it a good idea to do either. Keep your eyes on the road, not your phone. The person was right to honk at you.
Silhouette 13y ago
And so many people have long commutes with emails or instant messages coming in that they would like to be able to monitor without taking their eyes off of the road. Then perhaps they should consider taking public transportation? These kinds of HUD technologies could do a lot to make important driving information more easily accessible, but given the overwhelming evidence that trying to concentrate on remote communication while driving dramatically increases the risk of and damage caused by having an accident, it's hard to believe that shoving all that information between the driver's eyes and the road could ever make that kind of activity acceptably safe.

lifeformed 13y ago

I feel like this would introduce the same problems as captions do in movies: you spend the whole time staring at the captions/hud instead of the movie/outside. Except with movies, you just miss out on the cinematography, whereas with this, you get in an accident.