The transparent car

​Imagine a car which enables you to see through it’s design. So you cannot only see through the windows but also through the doors and the back of the car. It could be possible in the future. I wonder if this is a feature which we will need to make cars more safer? Because when this becomes normal in the design of cars they will be autonomous by that time.

Will we ever see a real version of this in cars? The creators of the transparent car answer to that:

Next we built a setup specifically for a Toyota Prius that made the backseat virtually transparent, so that the driver could see everything behind the car when driving in reverse. In this application, the system had one projector and six lenses, allowing the driver to act naturally without the system’s having to track the movements of the driver’s head. The result is a panoramic view that the driver can use intuitively—quite unlike the current, counterintuitive system, which sends output from a rearview camera to a display mounted on the dashboard. We are now collaborating with several automakers and automotive electronics companies in turning our concept into a commercial system.

The concept of the transparent car is made by Susumu Tachi and Masahiko Inami of the Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University. The concept is designed to help drivers stay aware of their surroundings. The technology isn’t new – this sort of video camouflage has been around for a while and also tested by the military as camouflage.

What do you think? Could this be a phase before we get the fully autonomous car?