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Land Rover Demos "Transparent Hood"
cartechboy (2660665) writes "When we were kids, we were promised flying cars in the future, like The Jetsons. Well, now it's the future, and we don't have any flying cars. But Land Rover just unveiled some crazy new technology called the Transparent Hood system. It's brilliant in its simplicity, and yet quite complex in its implementation. Using a web of camera images and projectors, the Transparent Hood system projects the area just in front of and underneath the nose of the vehicle onto a head-up display along the lower portion of the windshield. Not only is this obviously breathtaking, but when it comes to off-roading—or parking in tight urban spaces—this could change the game. It will allow drivers to see precisely what's below them and immediately in front of them allowing precise placement of the vehicle's front wheels. The system also displays key vehicle data including speed, incline, roll angle, steering position, and drive mode. People, this is the future, and the future is now."
Now I can see the potholes as they rattle my bones in real time. Kewl! ;-)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Perhaps I'm just old school, but the more features such as these makes me think that there's just another thing to go wrong.
hah, captcha is "redneck".
I thought this was going to be an article about transparent aluminum, beam me up Scotty!
and take my money!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
...so that I can see the ground hidden by my Big Fat Beer Gut?
Maybe if the hood wasn't so long or the windshield wasn't so small they wouldn't be having this issue!
The "demo" is just a "virtual prototype in testing", also known as: CGI. What an innovative concept... not. Please get back to me once you really have something to show.
Don't add it as an option, or don't switch it on if standard.
Was it that hard?
Recently both rear view cameras and sideview camera systems have been criticised as a bad idea by some here on Slashdot.
This Land Rover invisible hood system seems beyond criticism. But I'm sure slashdot naysayers will find an angle anyway. Go for it...
No, it allows me to see what I'm about to drive over, and might be able to avoid if I'm moving very slowly.
I'm sure the military will pay for this, because goddammit private companies have a RIGHT to profit, and public money is the best way to achieve this.
Sounds like Amish porn
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Well this will work (well?) for one point of view, the driver presumably. The passenger will see a distorted view unless they use some sort of system that can show two different images for two (or more) different viewpoints. They could use the "micro louvers" screen filters (patented by 3M I think) or some more sophisticated system that are used on some large screen LCD TVs that provide multiple points of view (or 3D images) without glasses. It's the same problem basically.
Why stop with just the hood? Why not make the door panels, the dash, even the roof and supports transparent? This would require displays that can be placed on curved surfaces but with OLEDs that is hardly a show-stopper. The big advantage to this, as opposed to most applications, is that the position of the driver (and passenger's) head and eyes are pretty well defined so the system wouldn't have to be calibrated to work with a lot of extreme cases (say with the driver's head down around the feet).
When we were kids, we were promised flying cars in the future
Who promised this? Was there a delivery date in their "promise"?
People dreamed of one day having these things, but nobody promised them.
I'd also love to have proximity sensors giving the distance from any part of my car to any obstacle. It'd make parallel parking a lot quicker if I could get a readout showing how many inches there are between my car and the vehicle behind me.
Rearview cameras can be useful, but unless you've got one like an RV mounted way up high aiming down at the back of the vehicle they won't help much in parking.
With the amount of money that goes into building a high-end car, you could equip it with a shitload of environmental sensors that monitor every tiny part of its surroundings - radar, sonar, infrared, visual, etc. The engine already gets monitored very extensively, and yet outside sensors have barely reached the point of dash-cams and reverse parking sonars - and even those aren't yet common-place.
Okay, okay. Don't get a bee in your hood...
( :-P )
The thing I don't get with these camera displays is the fact that they don't seem to have wipers on the camera, with cleaning solution.
Snow/Salt/Mud/Dirt really collect and make visibility bad. If you are offroading then one puddle and your feature is useless.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
as a frequent off road driver I think this would be a crappy device to have, very disorienting
You might be right as a frequent off-road driver - but as someone who occasionally drives off-road I would welcome it, as I get a really disconcerting feel when you come to the brow of a steep hill and all you can see in the windscreen is sky but you have to keep on driving until the car goes over the bump and you can see again.
" Not only is this obviously breathtaking, but when it comes to off-roading—or parking in tight urban spaces—this could change the game."
Not when the people using said vehicles aren't even familiar with the basics on how to handle and maneuver.
If you need assistance to parallel park in a tight urban space, you either need a smaller vehicle, or you need to call a cab or walk.
On top of that, you shouldn't have been given a license in the first place.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Followed closely by implementation of appropriate armaments...
Maybe Land Rover could second-source this see-through-opaque-surfaces sensor system to Lockheed to solve the problems with the virtual reality helmet on the Lightning II aircraft (the F35 JSF)?
In the video, it is mentioned that Land Rover itself calls it "Transparent Hood" in North America.
Tractors have had this feature for years. They are designed so that the front wheels are directly visible from the cab. A simple solution to a simple problem.
in Utah's Canyonlands, I'm not sure I *want* to see what's just in front of the bumper! It can be a long way down that uber-steep slope...
This is awesome...but how will it work on the large number of modern cars where you can't even see the hood from the normal driving position? They'd have to find some way to display it in car.
This is a pretty cool feature. I have seen a similar implementation in a Mercedes and a Toyota, but for backwards driving only. It would turn on the camera as soon as you shifted into reverse.
The article (and video) doesn't make clear how large the "heads up display" is but considering that they say it is along the lower portion of the windshield that implies it must be pretty big (to cover the area of the "hood").
The range rover isn't a military aircraft where the H.U.D. is going to be relatively near the pilot's face and directly in front of the pilot. For the range rover it wouldn't be safe or convenient to hang a piece of glass so near an ordinary automobile driver. The H.U.D.'s purpose in this case is to "mask" or overlay the hood which subtends a large part of the driver's viewing angle. Since it is placed far away (at the lower part of the windshield) it must be large. Hence it will also occupy a large portion of the (front seat) passenger's viewpoint and thus will project a distorted view unless corrected as I described above.
I guess they would have to get that pesky engine out of the way for it to do any good then...
...you can see if he was a friend of yours." Just as Tex Avery Predicted in his cartoons:- http://vimeo.com/32889552 (see 10m 50s in). Pure Genius.
Nissan already offers that.
http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/avm.html
...ever since there is a 2nd row of seats in a vehicle: When driving parents ignore screaming kids at the back rows. That's Trans-parenthood.
I'd also love to have proximity sensors giving the distance from any part of my car to any obstacle. It'd make parallel parking a lot quicker if I could get a readout showing how many inches there are between my car and the vehicle behind me.
Couple Arduinos, couple ultrasonic rangefinders, couple of LED strips...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Moab and Rubicon Trails would rock with this!
With a light colored hood, the heads up display during the day would be washed out.
:)
I imagine that cars with this technology would benefit from a matte black hood, making future cars look like modders with carbon fiber hoods. Next, we'll see some technology that requires a huge spoiler
I understand that backup cameras will be mandatory in cars by 2018. Related, I can see this being very use for larger vehicles where ground clearance impedes visibility. A small object or child can easily disappear below the line of visibility on larger SUV's and trucks and this seems to make it visible without being a distraction (and able to toggle off/on). Safety aside I can see this being very useful for driving in tight spaces and other instances where seeing the ground and wheels would be immensely helpful.
A friend had an International Scout that was so rusty you could see through the hood and both fenders. This is not new tech!
We are clearly approaching the singularity.
I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
This is not a good application of technology...
ALL OF THIS IS TO INCREASE SHOWROOM SALES
this is about hooking in soccer moms, with an eye to short term sales figures only, by dazzling them with technology they will never use
no ammount of technology can account for an **inattentive driver**
this is bunk application of tech....and to pretend otherwise is bad for our industry
Thank you Dave Raggett
Instead of 'Star Trek did it!' It's 'Stephen King did it!'
That's what we need; a Land Rover where the driver can't tell where the front end actually is. I'm sure they won't hit any hydrants/curbs/garage walls.
Off-roading? The cameras would be caked with mud and dust within 15 minutes. How is this going to be helpful?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This will take the senior citizen's favorite game "Farmer's Market" to a whole new level of interaction!
No one uses a 100,000$ dollar Land Rover for offroading silly! Are you nuts?
They are used by rich soccer Moms to drop off little Bobby at practice. Those camera may prevent them from running over Jimmy when they have had one too many cocktails and get all sassy and decide to take a short cut over the neighboring pitch...
Equipment on a Land Rover isn't going to save children. That's a rich person's car. Rich people's kids don't play in the street. Poor people will continue to be run over by clapped-out F150s.
Have gnu, will travel.
We did pretty much the same thing with US Army helicopters almost twenty years ago.
I have no problem admiting that the video is cool...but this is more about design trends and the implications
first...what was depicted in the video is not "off roading"
2nd...the most "off roading" these Range Rovers will ever see is if the Soccer Mom ever accidentally backs into a flower garden
again I think the video is cool, and the general concept has many awesome applications
this *particular* application is not one of them
Thank you Dave Raggett
While working in the shop in undergrad (all engineering majors were required to take a metalworking shop course so we wouldn't come up with stupid designs which were impossible to manufacture), the professor told us to be especially careful with the lathe. Because it's spinning and parts of it appear semi-transparent, it apparently doesn't register in some people's brains as really being there. I thought that was silly, then discovered that I was one of those people and nearly stuck my hand into the spinning lathe clamp. I've taken note of this deficiency in my visual system and am especially careful around things like fan blades and aircraft propellers (I have accidentally stuck my fingers into rotating CPU fans, which fortunately don't have enough mass to do much damage).
I suspect if you made a semi-transparent virtual view through the hood, people like me might "forget" there's a hood there in the first place thereby increasing the danger rather than reducing it. A view of only critical areas like directly in front of the tires would probably be safer, rather than making the entire hood semi-transparent for the gee whiz factor.
Can we just go full VR with this, ala Oculus ? Just put a headset on before you get in the car.
The opportunities would be endless ! First of all, it could repaint the entire interior to look like whatever sports coupe, vintage classic or whatever your dream car is.
You could be launching virtual. very satisfactory rockets at the jackass who just blocked your turn, create imaginary, optionally naked supermodels on passenger seats and so on ?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Land Rover has been an Indian car company for 6 years now. I can remember when they were British, but really all the interesting tech in Land Rover and Jaguar has come since Tata took them over, and started trying to make modern cars. It can be a hood if it wants to be.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I have 6' 1". I wanna to go up instead of down so i can see the fracking traffic light when i am first in line!!!
Don't make me give you the boot..
YEAHHHHHHH!!!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The other advantage is where you place an obstacle under your vehicle. If there's a large sharp rock, you want to drive over it such that it doesn't rip open your differential, for example. Now, all modern Land Rovers have independent suspension, but you still want to be straddling obstacles in the safest way possible.
www.clarke.ca
It's ``Prii''
Imagine, not having to see the boring interior of the car, but in essence, speeding along in open space like on a motorcycle, only with better protection. I can buy into this idea if done properly.
Well, not quite....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I think this would require eye tracking. The image projected on the windshield would change depending on the height of the driver, and would also change as you move your head up and down. It's a clever idea, but it could be very distracting as the image is continually adjusted for the height of your eyes.
Not so much. I get you're a fan but ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously.
Sounds like some great new technology Rover has there. It will be a great help in finding out where the oil leaks are coming from.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
More of a concept illustration. What the video shows is how someone can superimpose two videos and move the Opacity slider a bit.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
With 8 wheels, wouldn't there be better ways of tracking distance from drop offs than a transparent hood?
Linked to a computer that recognized loss and switched?
Perhaps too soon...
That's because Americans are easily confused, and struggle with English
Long time ago I owed a boat..... 1969 Malibu. One of the cool features of that car once I got the hang of it, is that the hood lines told me where the corners of the car were within a few inches. I knew if I was in the center of the lane by comparing the hood creases to the road markers.... easy peasy. Making that connection took all of about 2 hours of driving....
Today.... not so much... I have driven recent high-end cars that lack those old-school hood marks and are fairly hard to keep in lane without checking the left-outside mirror to check the center-line of the road(!)
WTF?!
Tesla seems to get this but a recent GM vehicle I drove had no 'center-line' marker on the hood. I was hunting the whole time of was driving it trying to figure out what hood feature was giving me feedback.... after 20 minutes I gave up... the left rearview was my best marker.... and that sucked.... I had to keep checking a mirror to make sure I was not over the center-line..... fuck you GM....
superchargers and hood scoops
Driverless, automated taxis are the future. Whether they fly or not.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"