It’s very dangerous to focus your vision four inches in front of your face while driving. It also takes a second to switch from distance vision to being focused so close, which undermines the whole “at a glance” value of a HUD. Race cars have instrument panels pushed as far away from the driver’s face as possible to make the focal length changes inside your eye easier and faster to switch between. A helmet HUD is the extreme opposite of that.
Lensing. BMW HUDs bounce off a few curved mirrors before reflecting off the windshield so some key details appear 30ft in front of the car. Meanwhile, VR goggles have the screen unfocusably close but due to lenses inside, objects can appear any distance away (and it’s not just parallax, there’s near and far focus)
My Cadillac has a video display as a rear view mirror and it has that issue. With a traditional rear view mirror your focal length doesn’t change much, but in my car your focus has to shift to the mirror 2 feet away.
It has upsides though, as passengers or objects in the rear seat don’t affect your mirror view.
Whenever I change vehicles it takes a few minutes to readjust.
It’s very dangerous to focus your vision four inches in front of your face while driving. It also takes a second to switch from distance vision to being focused so close, which undermines the whole “at a glance” value of a HUD. Race cars have instrument panels pushed as far away from the driver’s face as possible to make the focal length changes inside your eye easier and faster to switch between. A helmet HUD is the extreme opposite of that.
Lensing. BMW HUDs bounce off a few curved mirrors before reflecting off the windshield so some key details appear 30ft in front of the car. Meanwhile, VR goggles have the screen unfocusably close but due to lenses inside, objects can appear any distance away (and it’s not just parallax, there’s near and far focus)
My Cadillac has a video display as a rear view mirror and it has that issue. With a traditional rear view mirror your focal length doesn’t change much, but in my car your focus has to shift to the mirror 2 feet away.
It has upsides though, as passengers or objects in the rear seat don’t affect your mirror view.
Whenever I change vehicles it takes a few minutes to readjust.