Case Study · Automotive / HMI

Renault: Developing a Glasses-Free 3D Rear-View System

A rear-view display that shows real depth

Together with MOPIC, Renault developed a 9.2-inch rear-view display that shows the rear camera feed in 3D, with no glasses. The prototype lets drivers judge the distance and space behind the car by eye, and the project validated that in-vehicle 3D displays can be manufactured at scale.

Conventional rear and side mirror systems are based on flat images, so drivers can find it hard to judge distance and spatial relationships. Precise distance perception matters most when parking and reversing. As a result, interest in 3D-based vehicle vision systems is growing across the automotive industry.

The reason depth disappears in a flat image is simple. We perceive distance from the small differences between what our two eyes see (binocular disparity), and an ordinary camera image is a single picture from a single viewpoint, so that difference is gone. Drivers end up estimating distance from indirect cues such as the size of nearby objects or guide lines on the ground, and the fewer the cues — tight parking spaces, night driving — the shakier the judgment.

Solving this with 3D comes with one more condition: you cannot put 3D glasses or a headset on a driver. 3D inside a vehicle has to be glasses-free, and it has to hold a stable stereoscopic image from one fixed position, the driver's seat. That is the rear-view system Renault set out to validate with MOPIC.

Renault installed a 3D camera in the vehicle's rear-camera system and applied MOPIC's glasses-free 3D display module and 3D image processing to build a rear-view mirror prototype that shows the rear camera feed in 3D in real time. From the customer's point of view, the deployment breaks down into three parts: what they already had, what MOPIC added, and how the two were connected.

How it fits together

Eye-tracking is there because of the environment. Unlike an exhibition display watched by many people from many positions, a rear view is watched by one driver from one seat. A camera tracks the driver's eye position and aligns the stereoscopic image to it, so the 3D effect stays sharp even when the head moves.

Better rear-view perception

With the rear view shown in 3D, drivers perceive the space and distance relationships behind the vehicle more intuitively.

Extensible to other vehicle camera systems

The 3D display technology was developed in a structure that applies not only to the rear camera but also to side-view and front-camera systems. Because the conversion stage between camera input and display is the same, moving a validated pipeline to another camera system carries little overhead.

Stronger premium-vehicle technology

By validating the manufacturability and applicability of in-vehicle 3D displays, the project laid a foundation the customer can use in developing next-generation vehicle interfaces.

This pattern is not limited to Renault's rear view. If two or more of the conditions below apply, the same structure carries over as it is.