Art Lebedev's Transparentius eliminates opacity, improves road safety

Kudos where it's due: not many design houses use tanks in their illustrations of a new road safety concept. Transparentius, as with most good ideas, is remarkably simple -- you jack a camera onto the front of a truck, or lorry as they're known in some places, and then project that image onto the back of your hulking transporter. The effect of this is to render the truck figuratively transparent for the driver behind, who is enriched with a lot more information about what lies on the road ahead. No word on how the rear projection is achieved or how sunlight glare is overcome, but knowing Art Lebedev, you can bet both challenges are solved in the most unaffordable fashion possible. Anyhow, now that you've got the idea, we're throwing this one over to you dear mod-loving friends -- can you build this without remortgaging the house?

[Thanks, Dennis]

[egress63 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:10AM]

ingenious!

[Khris Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:55AM]

@egress63 Expensive!!

[m4192 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:21AM]

@egress63 Distracting!!!

[markfischoff Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:54AM]

@egress63 Something!!!

[Macbeth Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:59AM]

@egress63 but full of fail, watching the trucks come and go everyday the doors aren't exactly handled with care.

[Dking7 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:20AM]

@Macbeth they will get huge invisible shield for it :D

[acies Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:22AM]

@egress63
Also confuses people to the point where they'll drive right off the road.
Visual trickery such as this has no place in trafficking.

[celloids Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:44AM]

@m4192 Yes I strongly agree with you. IT IS ABSOLUTELY DISTRACTING.

[Erluti Posted Dec 22nd 2009 10:09AM]

Instead of mounting cameras on trucks, we could maybe not tail-gate them?

[pcfishhk Posted Dec 22nd 2009 10:51AM]

@egress63

I'll be running into the truck while seeing what's going on in front of it.

[TheFace Posted Dec 22nd 2009 12:07PM]

@markfischoff !!!!!!!!!!!!!111

[TjK Posted Dec 22nd 2009 1:38PM]

@Erluti especially if theres a fricken TANK in front of them!

[FreeRange Posted Dec 22nd 2009 3:07PM]

@egress63 I think Engadget showed this at some point but I can't find it now. It was a Halloween costume with an LCD in the stomach and a camera strapped to the persons back to give the effect of a whole that goes all the way through. Same idea, really.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/29/halloween.gadgets/index.html

[bigcow05 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:12AM]

Great idea as usual.

But cost should always be a factor in design, because the best ideas are just ideas until they can be implemented.

[1 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:13AM]

So you cant see the truck as you plough into the back of it. Sounds like a great idea.

[Tegdagne Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:24AM]

@1

LOL.

My thoughts exactly.

One step forward and two steps backwards for safety.

"I swear I didn't see the truck occifer!"

[7egend Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:16AM]

@1

I guess next time you'll watch where you are driving. Especially after paying for the trailer and the contents it's hauling. Just because you are a shitty driver and could see the potential in running into a "big ass truck" doesn't mean everyone else is.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:26AM]

Yeah people normally try to drive through rearlights and truckwheels and whacking big orange stripes as seen on the illustration.
And that's what you people call "good thinking".

Seems to me the real flaw of this plan is that you should not try to reduce the number of idiots that kill themselves.

[Bratyr Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:50AM]

@1 What kind of moron would you have to be to not see that truck? Large wheels, numberplate, fluoro orange stripe, liune between the doors etc. Do you often try to walk through the TV because you don't see it, only the scenery it's showing?

[ttsgeb Posted Dec 22nd 2009 2:20PM]

@Bratyr Yes, actually, now I would appreciate if you would quit joking about it.

[TWiz Posted Dec 22nd 2009 3:30PM]

@Bratyr

Right right, making most of the viewable area of the truck (the back) seem invisible is TOTALLY SAFE...

And yes I ALWAYS bump into my TV as it ALWAYS shows whats on the other side of it when it's off....nice failing comparison there.

You people who think a tiny plate and tiny lights are going to be more noticeable than the huge screen showing the main information are crazy.

The tech is the exact same as some of the invisibility cloaks being worked on and YOU people are trying to say an semi invisible mack truck would actually be safer? That right there is some hard core fail on your part.

[Sumgi Posted Dec 28th 2009 12:05PM]

@TWiz

You could project onto just the drivers side and leave the passengers side cargo door solid. Then the driver can see what's beyond but there is a more obvious reference point to the truck.

[NirvanaFlames Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:13AM]

can i say goodbye to no-zones now?

[Hmm Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:14AM]

Motion sickness in 3.. 2.. 1..

PS: The diagram shows that instead of staring at the back of the lorry, I'll now be able to stare at the rear of a tank.. great example!!

[geekthree Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:17AM]

@Hmm

THE GERMANS ARE COMING!! THE GERMANS ARE COMING!!!

Oh.. Wait.. its just fedex..

[Wwhat Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:28AM]

Tanks are cooler, and it's not to entertain you but to alert you that you cannot overtake quickly because there's a freaking tank in front.

[Skate It Dont Spray It Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:18AM]

In answer to your question: No, I cannot afford to build this without remortgaging the house.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:33AM]

micro projector or even cheaper a $200 budget LCD screen and some lexan to protect and a cheap cam, How expensive can it be?

[Skate It Dont Spray It Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:44AM]

@Wwhat and a lorry..

[Wwhat Posted Dec 22nd 2009 12:13PM]

The lorry you nick of some lot, or better yet some army garage, they won't miss one and will think it re-assigned or commandeered by some other unit, and it's your tax dollars anyway am I right?

[justinofthemoss Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:30AM]

pretty sure they stole this entire idea from "die another day"

[13xforever Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:31AM]

Nice! Obscene license plate on the main page! Way to go :D

[eSTAR Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:35AM]

no it's not possible to build this without third mortgage X-[ ...
but funny thing me and my friend came up with almost identical idea few years back, and with much more functional, less distracting and way cheaper design, not to mention easy way to apply ... this thing from ArtLebedev is same like their other designs nice images and no product, at least No Consumer level without third mortgage...

[Weasechops Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:37AM]

The number of times I have over-taken a truck, only to find a tank in front!

[Neon11234 Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:57AM]

@Weasechops I was about to say :), an every day situation. Those tanks clogging up the motorways, a hazard.
But now with this ground breaking technology, Tanks can no longer maliciously hide in front of lorries.

[glamajamma Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:39AM]

@Neon11234
What the hell is a lorry? Speak English damnit! : )

[No Comment Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:46AM]

@glamajamma

You have to be really careful telling the English how to speak our own language. We have something of an ownership complex in respect of it.

You're allowed to call it American English if you ask very nicely.

[Weasechops Posted Dec 22nd 2009 8:55AM]

@glamajamma

Being British myself, I though I would dumb it down and use the word truck :-)

[DeasdMeat Posted Dec 22nd 2009 10:33AM]

@Weasechops
Atleast I know a guy who have overtaken a truck while riding a tank (A Leopard 2, like the one depicted actually) on the motorway..

But I dont think the truck had been pimped by Art Lebedev :-)

[glamajamma Posted Dec 22nd 2009 11:34AM]

@Weasechops
We call it a semi, because being Diesel gives us a semi.

[Chefgon Posted Dec 22nd 2009 11:43AM]

@No Comment
I'm pretty sure you guys surrendered ownership of the language to George Washington in the Revolutionary War. At least that's what I was taught in my American public school.

[oGMo Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:41AM]

They should just use a cheap, low-resolution, reflective color display like you see for various signs and stuff. Not even the big fancy ones at stadiums that are luminous. This doesn't need to be brilliant 9 million lumens digital theater quality ultra HD, you just need an impression of what's going on, and you never care when you don't have an external light source already (headlights, sunlight).

[eSTAR Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:51AM]

@oGMo even with use of "low-resolution, reflective color display like you see for various signs and stuff" it just can not be cost effective neither profitable to build system for displaying traffic in front of a truck

[GrieverLion Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:44AM]

But how long till "doubleclick" or even "google" will put pop-up/flash ads in that. :(

[Sarig Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:44AM]

This looks like it would be terribly distracting to whoever is driving behind the lorry. Useful information to be sure, but nobody is used to dealing with that kind of information when driving.

Also, I love how the graphic explaning the system has a tanks in front. Doesn't everyone just see those on the highways slowing down the traffic?

[IlBaffo Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:48AM]

And if there is a truck behind the truck ?
The third veicle driver can go mad

[rhesusplus Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:11AM]

@IlBaffo

Funny thought... Infiniiiiite!

[MrOil Posted Dec 22nd 2009 6:49AM]

Has any one spotted that the Registration plate spells DICK in russian ?

X123УЙ = ХУЙ translation -> DICK

[NikSol Posted Dec 22nd 2009 7:22AM]

@MrOil Yep, and the truck is definitely from Perm region. Suppose Artemy Levedev doesn't like this Region that much, buahaha

[fontendet Posted Dec 22nd 2009 5:16PM]

@MrOil
That's translated just as @penis@ - whole thing, not the part.
In english Хуй will sounds like - "K:huy" or like Huey name but shortly. something like that