The Mystery Behind Bird's-Eye Views Finally Explained
Rear View Safety - A Safe Fleet Brand
Vehicle Safety - It's all we do.
No, there’s not a downward-facing camera hanging from a 20-foot pole attached to the top of cars with a 360° system.?
There’s neither a drone always hovering above your vehicle, nor a satellite tracking you from 12,000 miles up. So exactly how is the monitor on the dash getting that perfect vehicle overview?
Though every other new make and model is being released with a 360 camera, from the Toyota Camry, to the Chevy Bolt, to the Silverado, it’s probably not totally clear to the average person how those signature birds-eye images are actually produced.?
It’s a little bit of magic really--computer-imaging magic to be exact!
It all starts with the 4 (or 6, depending on the system and brand) cameras that are perfectly positioned to capture front, rear, and side exterior angles. After these usually wide-angle cameras capture the views, the images are stitched together by an image processing system the same way a panorama photo would be--except this is uniquely angled to surround a centered vehicle.?
The ending results: a lifelike, yet synthetic, top-down view of your surroundings that enables parallel parking with ease, reduces blind spots, and makes the little ones wonder where the camera floating on top of your vehicle is!?
Naturally, these systems require a bit of calibration when setting up, as any fancy piece of machinery like this requires proper positioning before usage (fear not, there are?solutions that even the least technically sound person can easily auto-calibrate )!
Don’t feel left out if your vehicle is missing this cool piece of tech; the camera aftermarket readily caters to older models these days, with more?affordable pricing, features like automatic trigger switches, and easy view-cycling.?