Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleBlackDuck
The issues that I foresee based upon my experience with reversing cameras are:
Total lack of depth perception due to the loss of stereo vision.
Your eye's focusing accommodation time when changing from distance to the much closer monitor surface.
Whiteout when the sun is behind you
Night vision- headlights from behind will tend to destroy any usefulness at night by flooding the camera and lifting the auto brightness level.
Reflection from the card windows.
Sun Glare and night viewing of the monitors. I find they need to be recessed quite a bit to achieve this.
I would build the housing with a small spherical mount for the camera to allow tuning of the field of view. Once finalized it can be glued or mechanically locked. I think it also needs to have a fair bit more stand off from the car body and the camera axis more aligned with the car. You need to have some of the car side as reference.
I will follow with interest to see how you go.
Simon
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How do you get "stereo vision" with an optical mirror?
Here's some of what I learned over
5+ years of driving with video mirrors:
Putting both monitors side-by-side means you only look in on place to see both sides of the car at once. This means much quicker to verify what is around you. And it really helps for backing up into tight spaces.
There are virtually no blind spots. I could see many vehicles in BOTH side view video mirrors at once. And I could see the rear bumper of a vehicle that was even with my shoulder. Think about that.
They work much better in the rain than optical mirrors, and they are also great at dusk.
You do not get blinded by headlights or the sun in the mirror. Yes, direct sunlight (at dawn and sundown only) will possibly overwhelm the camera (depending on how sophisticated its F-stop circuit is), but in this same situation, optical mirrors aren't too great, either.
They do not need to be adjusted between different drivers. Just set the cameras up to show a small bit of the car for reference, and you are good to go.
Depth perception is not great - but if you see something in the video mirror - then turn your hear and look at it.
And let's not forget the biggest benefit: reduced Cd and reduced frontal area mean that you drive farther on less energy.