360° Wrap-Around View System
Technology Contributing to Enhanced Vehicular Spatial Awareness and Road SafetySocionext's 360° Wrap-Around View System takes driver awareness and safety to a new level, by generating composite video streams from multiple vehicle cameras onto a three-dimensional mapping of a bowl that can visually assist a driver in monitoring a vehicle’s perimeter.
Since 2008, when Socionex became the first company in the industry to commercialize the surround view system, the technology has been adopted by numerous Tier1 providers serving the industry throughout the world. Socionext's surround view strength lies in its excellent display capabilities, and also in its extensive software offerings. These include image design tools that enable customers to develop their own products, so they can maximize the technology’s benefits for their own specific requirements.
Introduction Video
Business Model
Socionext designs and develops software solutions for customers to create the 360° Wrap-Around View System. These solutions include a development platform, a feature-rich "view design tool" and a high-performance software library running on Open GL ES/EGL. We also offer a graphics SoC to suit diverse business requirements.
Development platform for 360° WAV
View design tool
Software library
Graphics SoCs
“SC1810 Series”
Features
●Numerous Display Functions
●Enhanced Development Support Environment
Multiple Viewpoints
The Socionext 360° Wrap-Around View System can generate both a 2D/top view and a 3D view that stitches and projects camera images into a 3D bowl.
The top view is useful for calculating the distance between the vehicle and obstacles within the immediate vicinity, such as when parking or driving on a congested road. However, it can still be difficult to identify obstacles and pedestrians further away from the vehicle. With the 3D view, drivers can select precise viewpoints in accordance to their driving situation, and the system will generate optimal pictures allowing drivers to recognize their surroundings intuitively, by where they want to see, both from the desired position, and at the optimal angle.
[Top view]
[3D view]
Transparent Car
The breakthrough technology creates and draws images of the area underneath the vehicle using images taken previously by the camera. It assists drivers in understanding what is going on underneath the vehicle, including the position of the tires and of surrounding obstacles, which are not normally visible on the camera. For example, when parking a car, the driver will be able to see where the tires meet the wheel stops, which are hidden from a driver’s sight. Such technology can reduce the risk of damage to the vehicle and reduce the stress of driving. In addition, it helps prevent cars from hitting the curb when parking or making right and left turns.
The 360° Wrap-Around View System also can combine detailed images of a vehicle according to its traveling speed and turns, creating a natural-looking, seamless image under the vehicle -- without noticeable image breaks.
Dynamic 3D Bowl
This innovative technology dynamically changes the shape of the 3D bowl and the camera’s boundaries according to the distance from the surrounding obstacles, a feature that minimizes the common challenges of conventional 3D surround view systems -- such as the size of obstacles, and their disappearance at camera boundaries.
The dynamic 3D bowl imaging also helps reduce memory usage by eliminating the need to store a large number of 3D bowl shapes of varying surrounding situations.
This function uses the option library, PCL (Projection Control Library).
Real-time Reflection Mapping
The technology is attainable by using the reflection of the surrounding camera images powered by a "reflection mapping" technique on a glossy 3DCG vehicle model. It dynamically captures real-time camera images, allowing the user to achieve a more realistic and high-quality representation than lighting with a typical light source.
Brightness and Color Correction
The brightness and color correction feature converges the variation of luminance and tint between multiple cameras to a fixed value. The following three types of adjustments can be automated in accordance to customer requirements.
Brightness and color variations at a camera’s boundaries
Peripheral dimming of the lens
Gain value of the camera composite image
This function uses the BCL (Brightness Control Library).
Moire Reduction
Moire or interference fringes may occur in the image near the camera due to the higher image quality of modern cameras.
Socionext developed this unique filtering method to reduce moire.
An example of such application: of reducing the striped patterns of utility hole covers.
Development Platform for 360° WAV
Socionext offers a variety of development platforms for meeting any customer’s development process. In particular, total development periods are shortened by using the company’s “tried and true” PoC and PC environments as deployed in actual vehicles during the planning and specification stages prior to ECU prototyping. Socionext can help customers reduce the iteration of view specification consideration between OEMs and Tier1 suppliers, while contributing to the improvement of system functions and performance.
Socionext provides a PoC environment using actual vehicles, allowing customers to experience the company’s “360° WAV” technology as fully as possible.
Design Tools for Developing Viewdata
Socionext offers design tools for creating viewdata that supports the 360° Wrap-Around View System application development. The tool comes with simple UI operations enabling customers with limited or no prior experience to develop a surround view system.
Software Library
The 360° Wrap-Around View System software library provides an application programming interface (API) that optimally controls Open GL ES/EGL on a graphics SoC and can simplify the use of the rich 360° WAV functionalities. Customers can get started quickly and focus on their 360° Wrap-Around View System application development.
* Learn more about our company Graphics SoC SC1810 Series.
In the case of a third-party graphics SoC, it is provided by the customer.