This 'transparent' Land Rover hood lets you see the ground you're driving over

Shawn Knight

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Those that have done any serious off-roading are well aware of the importance of visibility and knowing the terrain you’re traversing. There’s no better way to gain this insight than simply having a look for yourself but when behind the wheel, that can be a bit challenging.

Fortunately the folks at Land Rover have come up with a clever concept to alleviate this hurdle: a transparent hood.

Ok, so it’s not a “real’ transparent hood. Instead, it uses a heads-up display that projects a view from under the front part of the vehicle so it looks as though you can see through the hood. Such a system would serve as little more than a distraction for most drivers but for off-roading enthusiasts, it could be immensely useful.

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That's actually really cool :p

I totally agree. I don't off road so I won't even pretend to know how needed this feature was, but it's implementation seems very good. I wonder though, if it accounts for the drivers hight to make the images match up at the right angle.
 
Paint it a matte black so you don't see all the reflections still...

I take that back. I don't think that would work to well XD
 
I would like to see this technology used in airplanes so that you could see through the floor, wall, wing, etc. It would make air travel a lot more exciting!
 
I know something like this is done in the F-35 fighter jet
where you can see in your visor at any direction you look ignoring the plane body itself
 
If you guys actually went off-road, you would know that very quickly you wouldn't be able to see the HUD. After a short time there would be so much dust and mud on the hood, that is all you would see.
 
Not buying the dirt on the hood argument. The HUD projects on the inside of the windscreen, so what's on the hood isn't going to significantly impair the technology if its engineered to account for variable hood conditions. The real problem is keeping the camera lenses clean in a muddy/snowy environment.
 
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Not buying the dirt on the hood argument. The HUD projects on the inside of the windscreen, so what's on the hood isn't going to significantly impair the technology if its engineered to account for variable hood conditions. The real problem is keeping the camera lenses clean in a muddy/snowy environment.

I still believe the dirt will impair visibility a lot. But it takes to see one to know. In the meantime, the hood in the demo video is waxed to shining, which in itself calls for the concern of what if...
 
Well to be fair, it still is and add from a car manufacturer so you wouldn't expect anything less than a waxed/clean car. I thought the choice of color was more interesting personally. Not so sure this would work on a white hood or if it would look too washed out.
 
So how does it work at night time?

Well it probably has to have some amount of illumination in the hud for you to see it so it might work better at night if there are lights by the camera. Unless the hud is some retro unlit lcd which at this level of enthusiast tech seems silly
 
A virtual prototype then? Now, what I understand that to mean is, this is not test video from a real prototype, but a CGI mock-up of what they expect the prototype to be able to perform like when they actually get around to attempting to build it. Well, I hope the real thing has better depth perception than this. If a person suffers from motion sickness this will make them hurl quicker than an Occulus Rift.
 
What happen the sonic waves non-wiper blades tech? Now you have this device so when it rains how will it fair in the rain or heavy snow storm.
 
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