Project NiteVision - NiteMax + HUD + carputer - Page 11

Genesisfactor · 05-01-2006, 10:02 AM

that's true, but i'm talking about everything else that's not made to look like the Northern lights, like subte details. I dunno, Its important to me to be able to see into other cars or read detials like the liscene plate

.

yea, i keep forgetting yoru lens has fisheye, so it gives that FatF/2F2F nitrus hyperspeed look. Still is a great daytime video.

Also, my computer lags on some of yoru divix clips and i ahve no idea why. Its a 2.0P4 with 768 Ram and plays most games well. I would be certian it owuld have no problem with yoru clips, and i know i have the newest codecs. Possible soltuoins? I'll just re-dl and reinstall the codecs forow and hope it fixes it

TomG · 05-01-2006, 10:45 AM

its probably washed out because of the way the camera meters. Even a center weighting would still have some of the dash in view which is a lot darker than the sky outside so it is overexposing, I wouldn't have thought there would be a way round it short of actually having the camera outside so it doesn't see anything other than you want it to meter for.

btw, the videos lag on mine too, in that, they each pause a couple of times when playing back. I have a P4 2.6 Northwood HT and a gig of dual channel PC3200 so I doubt its my machine...

shotgunefx · 05-01-2006, 11:01 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by TomG

its probably washed out because of the way the camera meters. Even a center weighting would still have some of the dash in view which is a lot darker than the sky outside so it is overexposing, I wouldn't have thought there would be a way round it short of actually having the camera outside so it doesn't see anything other than you want it to meter for.

btw, the videos lag on mine too, in that, they each pause a couple of times when playing back. I have a P4 2.6 Northwood HT and a gig of dual channel PC3200 so I doubt its my machine...

I also get the lag, thought it was my machine

It's funny, I tried upgrading today after doing these, then every video encoded after that was frigging upside down so I had to uninstall it and go back to the previous version.

I'll have to try screwing some more with the dsp features, though they didn't seem to do much last time around to improve the situation.

As far as the compensating, there's got to be something else to it. With different lenses, it does a much better job of compensating. I can aim it at a bright light and see the element. Maybe it's a combination of the low F and the wide lens. The other ones I've tried that fare better are more narrow to various degrees.

For instance, one that adjusts from F-1.5 to 16 fairs slightly better than the wide angle F1.6 even at F-1.5. At about 2,it's close to perfect.

In all the experiments in the house, I never had that washed out effect ever. Even aiming a red laser at it, some of the surrounding scene could be seen with good composition (unless you hit it dead center and then the whole thing was white/red), maybe it was a voltage problem for the camera or the lilliput. In the first videos, the camera was hooked up to the camcorder at all times. The last, to the screen. Though I was driving around with just the screen at first with no problems.

spaceskater · 05-01-2006, 01:28 PM

I've been really busy with the finals but I got some time in the weekend to play around.

@shotgunefx I think your problem in a combination of the wide angle and the windshield-dashboard reflecting light back to the camera. In all the tests I did when I had the camera mounted inside it gave me a lot of problems espatially with washing out.

I mounted the camera in the front grill (see photos) and it compensates very well for light changes. Unfortunately I have no way to capture video yet since I have no capture card.

About the HUD: I've been playing around with some Fresnel lenses and some polarizing filter. With the polarizing filter results are amazing in terms of picture clarity BUT it really restricts your view to the outside! I also found that if you magnify the image enough the light is diffused and the second image due to the double reflection is barely visible thus you don't need the polarizer.

About the HUD photos. First is no magnification, second is one lenses, third is two lenses. With two lenses the double image is minimal but the photos are not that clear, camera could not focus. ALSO using two lenses the image was focused further away in the distance.

Genesisfactor · 05-01-2006, 02:23 PM

so fresnel is all we need? what about the your image, is that off a nitemax LCD or another one?

spaceskater · 05-01-2006, 02:33 PM

Yes that is the NiteMax LCD. Well the negative part is that you need some space above the lcd. Like the first lens in 2 inches second at 5. Total 5

Genesisfactor · 05-01-2006, 04:41 PM

so you successully completed the vga mod? or is that composite? what do you mean space? for displaying the image?

spaceskater · 05-01-2006, 06:30 PM

nope it's composit. But it is very sharp. 640 x 480. I didn't get the chance to play with the vga input. I am to busy with finals so I am hopping some of the other guys will figure that out

About the space, you need some distance between the lcd and the Fresnel lenses otherwise they will not magnify the image. That means that the LCD has to be deep in the dash if possible with the lenses on top.

Genesisfactor · 05-01-2006, 09:48 PM

gah, i only have s-video and VGA outs...looks like i' stuck with VGA till further notices as i dont' want to mess with the S-Vid out yet. Now i need a video capture card with Composite out as well just to plau with this cause now i want to.

spaceskater · 05-01-2006, 09:55 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Genesisfactor

gah, i only have s-video and VGA outs...looks like i' stuck with VGA till further notices as i dont' want to mess with the S-Vid out yet. Now i need a video capture card with Composite out as well just to plau with this cause now i want to.

I only have s-video out too but one of the components of s video is composite video. It is extremely easy to get composite from s-video. Radioshack sells that cable too. if u want to make it yous self check out this place:http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/c...eo2cvideo.html

billforde · 05-01-2006, 10:00 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Genesisfactor

gah, i only have s-video and VGA outs...looks like i' stuck with VGA till further notices as i dont' want to mess with the S-Vid out yet. Now i need a video capture card with Composite out as well just to plau with this cause now i want to.

What about a svideo to composite adapter. Cheaper than ati's

Genesisfactor · 05-01-2006, 10:08 PM

oooo...now i just need to figure out a way to get $5 and i'm golden! thanks man!

NiteMax Mark · 05-01-2006, 11:00 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by spaceskater

I only have s-video out too but one of the components of s video is composite video. It is extremely easy to get composite from s-video. Radioshack sells that cable too. if u want to make it yous self check out this place:http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/c...eo2cvideo.html

The Sanyo chip on the NiteMax LCD Controller is made to accept S-Video. If the board itself carries these signals out to the world, you'll be able to feed it S-Video directly and you're done.

I will try to find the time to look at the details and post instructions on getting S-Video to work directly without any adapters!

spaceskater · 05-02-2006, 12:18 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by NiteMax Mark

The Sanyo chip on the NiteMax LCD Controller is made to accept S-Video. If the board itself carries these signals out to the world, you'll be able to feed it S-Video directly and you're done.

I will try to find the time to look at the details and post instructions on getting S-Video to work directly without any adapters!

That would be great!! It would increase the quality of the picture too! Not VGA but good enough! Once again thanks so much Mark!

shotgunefx · 05-02-2006, 04:33 AM

spaceskater
I'll verify tomorrow or the next day, but pretty sure it's the lilliput and not the camera causing the white out. All those videos were shot only minutes before. I think when I plugged in the cam to the lilliput it glitched it. Easy enough to verify.

The other thing I need to do is put the cam on regulated voltage.
For the in car testing, I'm just running it to the ACC socket. I know with some of the cheaper cmos cameras, the picture brightness varies somewhat with voltage. Maybe the same here?

For the polarizing film, did you use it as the display or just lay it over the lilliput? The privacy film I use is sort of like a polarizer, but with a somewhat wide angle. When I layed it over the lcd itself, the double reflection was just about gone.

Did some night driving and it's raining like crazy. Even if the light can be compensated, polarizing I don't think will be a bad idea. You can see that wet ground reflects a lot and hides detail (lane markings for one).

I encoded these at a lower rate. The pause is gone, but obviously, the quality isn't as good. In particular, when it's dark. No IR illumination in any of these.

Front Camera vid-1 9271 KB

Front Camera vid-2 3968 KB

This one's a little interesting. One, it shows how the camera distorts. That's a somewhat tight spot, but you'd never know it.

The other is the flickering light, denoted by the arrow. If you watch the vid, there's this light just flickering (not to the eye of course, just the camera). I think when I pull out, it's at least somewhat my headlights, but before when I'm not moving... dunno.

Not sure of the cause, but as the car pulls up to it, it becomes a massive glow.

Front Camera vid-3 5708 KB

Headlights off briefly, fairly dark road

Front Camera vid-4 2737 KB