Heads Up Displays
Just imagine using your entire car windshield as a fully transparent display with many additional information details showing up on a wide Head-Up display automatically. These Head-Up Displays are no science fiction anymore. In fact there are development kits available which help you to build up full windshield Head-Up Display (fw-HUD) applications on your car windshield.
Increased Awareness
A heads-up display (HUD) or head-up display provides users with a wide array of data on a transparent display in front of their eyes. This setup allows the user to avoid looking away from the usual lines of sight. Initially developed for aviation, the name “HUD” derives from a pilot’s ability to view data with the head in an “up” position, looking forward, rather than downward at the actual instruments. This technology, coupled with the increasing amount of information available on a HUD, has enabled a wide variety of military and some commercial aircraft to fly more securely in poor weather or at night.
Commercially Available
In 1988, General Motors put a HUD system into a handful of cars. These systems projected the instrument display onto the windshield of a Cutlass Supreme Pace Car and fifty replicas. In 1991, Toyota introduced the Crown Majesta, its flagship domestic model, with a HUD system. Gradually, HUD systems began to improve. The Corvette featured the first color HUD in 1998. In 2003, BMW offered a system in its 2004 5 Series that displayed in multiple colors, with brightness adjusted to ambient light, and customizable with navigation information (which, at the time, came on a DVD-based system).
Today, similar systems are increasingly available on many luxury car models, and some non-luxury models. Heads-up display is even standard on the Toyota Prius. Speed, hybrid system information, and navigation data are available on the HUD, which also allows the driver to adjust brightness and position of the projected image
