The Nissan over-head view eliminates blind-spots

In the hopes of eliminating blind-spots, Nissan already includes rear-view cameras on nearly every model sold and a few (in Japan) also have side mounted cams. Now they are testing a system which incorporates these and front-mounted cameras to project a bird's-eye-view of your auto and its surroundings right onto your dashboard display. Unless you live in Fort Lauderdale, this system will simplify big-city parking that suburban SUV slab and help prevent turning your young 'uns new tricycle into mash.
 
[Via Mike's List]

[teksno @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

so umm..... how does a fromt mounted camera show a birds eye view...i guess it some how processes all the images and puts them together?? or is this the first flying drone that will fly over your car and repot back to big brother?

[William @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Finally, something that makes driving more like the original GTA.
( www.rockstargames.com/classics/ )

[Gordy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Hey, it's Skeets!

[jimmy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Matrix-based mathematics, thats how you do it. Did something like that in college but we didn't blend all the photos together like that. The picture of the car is probably superimposed on the screen. and I doubt it would look that seamless, I have a feeling that pic is just a mockup but anything that looks remotely similar to that is freakin awesome

[Marat Denenberg @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Even if you were to splice images ... how do you get a top-down view of the objects next to you, nevermind the car itself?

[pableu @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

I also don't believe that this is an actual screenshot. But anyways, this could be very cool ;)

[saycheese @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

I think what you'd see is not a video of the top-down view of your car squeezing into the parking space, but rather an animated overhead-parking-cam view which would calculate the distance to your surrounding objects based on the camera views and/or proximity sensors, and give you a pseudo-camera-view of your parking space.

[Wonderkid @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

What a brilliant idea! I used to work in image processing, and it will not involve too much processor power to use 4 cameras/laser/radar sensors (front, back, sides) to generate a composite view. I cannot believe no one else thought of this before! Never again will we have to have a passenger get out of the car and shout "Stop!" just as the driver dings the Rolls parked in the next spot...

[johdaxx @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Rad - It's the 80s arcade race car game view! When they add enough features to make it like Spyhunter or Super Sprint you won't have to look out the windows at all!

[Gordy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Something tells me this might INCREASE minor accidents.

"Let me get just a little closer..."

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

I prefer 3rd person behind the car view.

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Just wait till people start depending on this. There will be more car breakin's for hacking than carjacking. Then the unsuspecting victim's next parallel park will be vlogged live on location.