For detailed information about the people and company behind the InLand Mobile system, visit MVS Labs.

The purpose of 3D Head Up Display is to portray - safely and inside your natural field of view - "Active Safety" symbols like collision warnings and drivers map preferences.

An immersive, Augmented Reality projection system, InLand Mobile is designed to pull these preferences from your smart phone, always to enhance - never compete with - real objects and images on the road in front of you.

Prioritizing safety and curating the HUD view - deciding what to allow in, and what to leave out - will be key to implementing this or any A/R HUD for consumers.  

Rendered as a translucent overlay InLand will display safety and navigational symbols at appropriate depths from your car and your eyes.  Collision warnings generated by DSRC may enter the HUD looking something like this:  

It's hard to distinguish the power of depth cues from a 2D image on a computer.  But this image would appear deep into this driver's forward view, where a car is exiting a driveway, a hazard unseen from this driver's position.

As NASA flight safety research has confirmed, "Conformal Head Up Display" - showing pilots and drivers symbols at appropriate depth cues within the landscape - is mandatory in order to prevent pilot and driver "tunneling" (over focusing on images that are too close to your eyes).  But conformal display has been too expensive for everyone but the military until now.  InLand Mobile creators at MVSC radically reconceived and miniaturized an optical laser projection engine that makes fighter-jet quality navigation affordable for cars and trucks.

What our HUD is not ...

The InLand Mobile 3D HUD is not merely a pico-projector "painting" 2-dimensional images on a windshield with lasers.  Several car makers employ this type of limited 2D laser system, an older technology with a useful but limited function. InLand is fully compatible with 2D systems, however, so manufacturers can tailor displays to their customers' needs.

Driver Preference and Safety

InLand Mobile is ideal for optimizing driver-selected social commerce relationships, within safety limits.  FaceBook Deals, GroupOn coupons, Google Offers etc. can be displayed when part of a back-end engine that appropriately prioritizes safety and limits cognitive load.  

Imagine following the "Virtual Cable" from the airport in your rental car to your hotel - in a town you've never visited.  Some drivers will prefer the "less is more" approach, and instead choose smaller icons, arrows at turns etc..  All of these are options for drivers, safety experts, auto makers and HMI pros to debate and experiment with in the field.  We're eager for feedback from all of these quarters - including artists and designers - because we believe that no single car company or agency will have all the answers.  

To paraphrase our colleagues at Ford Motor Company, while HUDs may not be new, per se, elegant solutions that are practical, cost effective and can be implemented soon in passenger cars are rare. 

Most US, European and Japanese auto makers and Tier 1 suppliers have HUD development programs, but MVSC seems to have landed on key solutions that have eluded the others.  Innovative teams, like those at Ford, have opened their minds, and their R&D process, to interaction with small companies like MVSC.  We look forward to working with Ford and others to design the best HUDs on the market - affordable by many, not just the few.   

Press

Europe's leading road safety magazine had some nice things to say about us.  Vision Zero International said...

2D Bad. 3D Good… Enter MVS-California. Despite the best efforts of the likes of GM and Siemens, it appears that this tiny operation from San Francisco has devised the least expensive, smallest and most effective solution."

To participate in lab or road testing with MVSC, contact Juliana Carnes.