Line up for full-windscreen satnav

Is map reading a lost art now?

We have a cheaper, more environmentally- and user-friendly alternative to satnav - learn to read a f*cking map, you twits.

When were the patents applied for?

I seem to recall someone here suggesting satnav could draw the borders of the road on a head up display. So drivers could see the road ahead at night, or round bends.

horrific english

I can't even read this

"Virtual Cable then uses the routeplan the gadget comes up with to display the red line"

I agree, get a map

Yet I have gps in my phone...I never use it, though. I load up Google maps and look at the route, then go and drive it. It's not hard. GPS is for when you are going a thousand miles away or something, not to go to the store for a loaf of bread.

spezzer, It's a laser, it's all curves.

Scary

If this was allied to the moronic satnav in my Audi, I'd follow that red line the wrong way up a one-way street and into an oncoming bus in about the first mile. Garbage in, (dangerous) garbage out.

HUDs

Oddly, GM has had HUD technology for years (my friends Pontiac has it), but it's never really caught on for some reason. One problem with his car's system is the windshield has to have a special coating, making it damn expensive to replace if it cracks. I wonder if they've gotten around this somehow?

better off just indicating direction

Drawing a line like the illustration is bound to distract drivers. It would be far better to just display an indication of what action is required at the next junction and an estimated distance. It doesn't even need to be textual information - just a shrinking line or something.

Much like a TomTom does when you've got it set not to display the maps (for safety reasons - does anyone ever use that setting?)

How on earth

will this fit in my motorcycle helmet?

Guess standard GPS "boxes" aren't so dead after all.

But I would consider this for my car, so long as I still had the traditional display to refer to. The idea of highlighting road edges at night on some form of head-up display is also nice, but unless you are 100% accurate, and the highlight doesnt obscure some small obstacle in the road, I would be rather hesitant to use this.

@AC 15:02GMT

One should be able to look at the map before leaving the house, and memorise the route. At most, one should only need to stop to review the route for the last couple of miles. Stopping to read a map is hardly unsafe.

You have been brainwashed by the consumer-goods-pushers, young man.

Some questions

Not completely novel, but I'd be a fan if it worked well.

Some questions though:

1. Would the projection need to be calibrated to the driver?

By shifting position, won't the image become mis-aligned? The image would be completely distorted for the other passengers.

2. The "screen shot" looks good, but in the real world, won't the virtual line overlap physicial objects that ought to be occluding it. (the line should disappear around a bridge or corner).

As someone else posted, perhaps this would be more useful as just a direction/distance indicator without attempting to paint into the scene.

Paper maps are always too regional

The problem with a map is that you never have the area that you need in detail. When you get lost, it's usually in an unexpected place, due to traffic or construction detours. I rarely get lost since I have an uncanny sense of direction (which really annoys my GF), but when I do, the maps are useless because I'm on some local street that doesn't show up on the maps.

In the backcountry, I love 7.5 minute maps. Drop me anywhere with a compass and I can locate myself. But while behind the wheel, the GPS navigation is much more convenient as well as safer to operate.

Nice idea but...

It looks nice, but in reality the heads up display will lag behind. Almost all GPS chipsets I've used have had a 1 second refresh rate, your car can rotate quite a lot in one second and this renders the heads up display useless.

RE: Is map reading a lost art now?

Map reading is all well and good until you think you're on the correct road and you're not. You may be able to navigate a pre-remembered route perfectly but if you're in an unfamiliar vehicle on unfamiliar roads, it can be easy to become lost. Once lost, a map can be next to useless as, even when you can work out where you are it's still not always apparent how to get back to where you want to go.

I have always been able to use maps when walking and cycling on the trail, but on roads I've had to resort to asking directions on a few occasions, simply because unfamiliar roads with strange junctions can be very difficult to navigate.

Helmet visors & map reading

Look forward to the day when I get something like this fitted in my helmet displaying on the visor!

Personally, yes I'm perfectly able to read a map, but in reality that doens't always help with some routes. It's fine when you're going somewhere near to a major junction, but when you're going somewhere in the middle a large city it becomes a problem. There's no way I can memorise that many turns, junctions and roundabouts accurately, and of course map reading on a bike, even when stationary is fiddly due to gloves and the map being in a bag! I tend to have a single headphone in my ear under my helmet, connected to my GPS enabled phone in my pocket so I can hear the directions as I ride, but it's far from ideal.

@Mr Chris / HUDs

Have you every tried to read a map while driving? Try it too many times and you'll either end up with points from the boys in blue or wrapped round a Polish lorry!

I have a cheapo gps which does me just fine when I'm going somewhere unfamiliar however sometimes it's wrong which is the reason I still carry maps for the places I go most (A-Zs etc) and a full UK map.

To answer your question yes I can read a road map, growing up reading OS maps (my parents are climbers/hikers) makes reading road maps a synch.

HUDs are already a feature on certain BMWs etc eg M5. But I always wonder about this type of tech whether it could ever block the drivers view, I can just see it "Sorry M'lud I crashed into the copshop because my satnav BSOD'd all over my windscreen".

@ various (defensive satnav owners?)

@Wierknicki

"Unless you hand-wrote your luddite diatribes and sent them to El Reg in the post, I suggest that you reconsider your obvious hypocrisy."

The fact that you think the two things are even remotely comparable is quite funny. But in a sad way.

@Mr Gilbert

"Have you every tried to read a map while driving? Try it too many times and you'll either end up with points from the boys in blue or wrapped round a Polish lorry!"

You'll note I suggested *pulling over* to check the map if it became necessary.

@ Cameron Colley, AC 18:42

You raise a good point there, actually, in that for someone who does a lot of travelling (for their job, for example) a GPS would actually be useful - in a city to city drive it's the last section that tends to be troublesome, and unfamiliar inner city roads can be nightmarish (try driving round South London and the lack of road signs is quite shocking).

What irks me is the way that every single bugger on the road seems to have felt the needto go and buy a GPS - when clearly the majority of the driving that most of these people undertake is around already-familiar areas. And if you are dirivng to a bit of Cheltenham you've not been to before, you can just check on your local map where it is, and then next time you'll know.

It's like those bluetooth headsets - I'm sure a vanishingly small percentage of the population really *do* need to be constantly hands free in case an important call comes in and at that exact moment they need their hands free for removing the bullet from a small child, but those twats walking round Asda with their little earpieces in? I think not.

Triumphs of marketing over common sense.

HUD's

I have had Sat Nav on my BMW HuD for three years now. (Also includes speed and warnings). Brilliant safety feature - also great if you wear glasses as HuD focus coincides with normal driving view.

Paper maps

have one edge, they don't crash. A mate recently got lost driving from Watford to Chichester because his Tom-Tom went arse up in a car park in Watford. Did he have a road map? No. Did he end up going the wrong way around the M25? Yes. A 30 sec glance at an even half decent map would have shown him the twit proof way between those two locations and indicated that he needed to follow the Heathrow signs from the M1/M25 jct.

Sat Nav is great in unfamiliar urban areas but on the open road you really should know where you are going and how you get there rather than depending on a sat nav box to point out the bleedin' obvious.

@Mr Chris

> learn to read a f*cking map, you twits.

And presumably also learn how to pluck feathers from swans so accounts can be written up in ink on parchment, instead of using a spreadsheet.

I can map read perfectly well but not while driving, for obvious reasons, and having a SatNav chatting (or projecting) at me instead is very useful. Rather like how a spreadsheet is very useful for doing accounts - but neither is a substitute for an understanding the basic principles.

Sunny days?

Will it be much use on a sunny day? Or when you're driving into the sunrise or sunset?

It seems to me that anything that you need to put the visor down for is going to render it pretty useless.

Be cool if it works though.