Just follow the lines
Just about everyone loves sat nav, it truly is an ingenious system. Despite making destinations so much easier to find however, journeys can still be quite difficult to navigate, even with sat nav. Particularly when it comes to UK roundabouts where you'll hear a message along the lines of "at the roundabout, take the thirty-ninth exit". I'm known to take the wrong exit from time to time.
A company with the name of Making Virtual Solid seem to have the perfect answer with its newly unveiled Virtual Cable technology. Revealed at the Update Navigation & Location USA conference on December 4th 2007, Virtual Cable technology displays an image through the windshield of a vehicle in the form of a line suspended above the road. All you need to do is follow the line.
The official description reads "The driver sees the Virtual Cable image through the windshield. It appears as if suspended over the road, similar to a trolley cable. The image is in true 3D and appears to be a natural part of the landscape. The driver uses only peripheral vision to follow the Virtual Cable."
"The Virtual Cable is so powerful, intuitive, unambiguous and safe because it appears and behaves with true 3 dimensionality within the landscape."
Sounds a bit far fetched but it does exactly that. Head on over to the official Virtual Cable website to see a selection of simulation videos. Though the videos only show simple turns, they demonstrate quite clearly just how effective this technology could be.
The new system's advantages are listed as:
- You won't have to be able to estimate 500 feet to the next turn.
- You won't have to turn down the radio to hear directions.
- You won't have to search for the next intersection on an unlit roadway at night.
- You won't have to focus and refocus your eyesight as you look from road to map and back to the road again.
- You won't have to relate map data to the real world.
- You won't have to search for a number on a building or surrounding landmarks.
I'll be hoping that Virtual Cable will be able to draw appropriately around roundabouts, that'll be all my dreams come true!
Source: mvs.net
