This past weekend, some friends dropped by, and they were driving a new BMW (X3 I think). It had a fantastic feature that I really would love to have on my Model S. I would be surprised if Tesla could retrofit it, but for future owners it would really be nice. I'm not sure what BMW calls it, but I'd call it a "Synthetic Overhead View".
It uses a combination of three cameras to produce a synthetic overhead view. One camera was a backup camera like the one in the Model S. The other two were mounted under the side mirrors, and had wide-angle lenses on them. The software takes the fish-eye image and warps it into the presentation you see below. This is combined with very high resolution data from the ultrasonic sensors to show obstructions. (See the colored presentation to the right of the camera view.)
Finally, it overlays onto the image two curved lines when the wheel is turned. One shows the anticipated trajectory of the car with the current wheel position, and the other shows the maximum turn possible.
I've driven the Model S for a little over a week at this point, and I'm still having trouble parking this very wide beast with the hard-to-see front corners. That overhead view would be a godsend. I think it would be even better with a fourth, front camera to make it easy to see the curb. Also, the BMW cameras seemed a bit fuzzy, so a higher resolution sensor would probably make it better.
It uses a combination of three cameras to produce a synthetic overhead view. One camera was a backup camera like the one in the Model S. The other two were mounted under the side mirrors, and had wide-angle lenses on them. The software takes the fish-eye image and warps it into the presentation you see below. This is combined with very high resolution data from the ultrasonic sensors to show obstructions. (See the colored presentation to the right of the camera view.)
Finally, it overlays onto the image two curved lines when the wheel is turned. One shows the anticipated trajectory of the car with the current wheel position, and the other shows the maximum turn possible.
I've driven the Model S for a little over a week at this point, and I'm still having trouble parking this very wide beast with the hard-to-see front corners. That overhead view would be a godsend. I think it would be even better with a fourth, front camera to make it easy to see the curb. Also, the BMW cameras seemed a bit fuzzy, so a higher resolution sensor would probably make it better.
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