This may very well be one of many weirdest patents from an automaker we have ever seen. Sure, even weirder than the patent from Ford describing a technique to drive a automobile by thoughts management. Feast your eyes on Basic Motors’ Autostereoscopic Campfire Show for automobiles.
In plain English, GM has an thought for a system that, amongst different issues, can show a hologram of a campfire for passengers in a automobile. However that is not truly the bizarre half. The strangest factor is how GM desires to do it: The patent makes use of a sophisticated projection system to beam photos immediately to your eyeballs.
How does it work, precisely? There are 16 pages in GM’s patent software describing the method, seven of that are diagrams full of extra straight and dotted traces than the New Jersey Turnpike. They present how a passenger monitoring system, spatial gentle modulator, image generator unit, beam steering machine, and all types of pc processors work collectively to undertaking photos on to the eyes of passengers.
Photograph by: US Patent and Trademark Workplace
The passenger monitoring system retains monitor of the folks, particularly the place their eyes are situated. This enables the beam steering machine to undertaking photos created by the spatial gentle modulator on to the eyes. The system can monitor a number of passengers and undertaking particular person photos to every individual. Actually, the system tasks completely different photos to every eye, thus making a 3D impact. Keep in mind these colourful, geometric photos that may reveal a hidden 3D message in the event you crossed your eyes good? It is sort of like that.
At the least, we expect it is like that. The patent mentions quite a few eventualities projecting photos which might be practically the identical, precisely the identical, or fairly a bit completely different. It additionally covers other ways to trace folks and undertaking photos, however all of them contain taking pictures one thing at your eyeballs at a frequency better than 30 Hz. Apparently, that is the frequency at which the human eye will not understand any flickering and mix every two-dimensional picture right into a single 3D imaginative and prescient.
As for the campfire connection, frankly that is a thriller. We do not see any point out of it past the patent’s title. Maybe that is the very best instance of how this technique takes a two-dimensional picture and makes it 3D, nevertheless it definitely leaves us with extra questions than solutions. That is billed as an leisure characteristic, however might future navigation programs beam instructions straight to your eyes? Perhaps passengers might watch films with none chance of the motive force taking a peek?
That mentioned, do not count on to see this anytime quickly, if ever. The patent references such a system being utilized in vehicles with superior Stage 4 and Stage 5 autonomous capabilities.
