How do they make the HUD on a car appear to float above the front of the hood, and can they choose it’s position?

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I recently rented a car which had an HUD for your speed, as well as the current speed limit.

When looking at it, it seemed to float above the front of the hood. I took [a picture](https://imgur.com/8rC0Ijv) of it which came out pretty well.

I am wondering how they get it to float, instead of looking like it’s sitting on the windsheild, and whether they can control where it appears to float. For example, could something be changed that would make it feel like it was closer, perhaps in the middle of the hood instead of at the front of it? How about if they wanted to make it seem like it was three car lengths in front of the car?

If it is possible to change where it appears to float, what do they have to change about it to have that effect?

EDIT silly fingers added an apostrophe to the “its” in the title, and I can’t change it.

In: Technology

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is a small projector embedded in the dash of the vehicle. It basically just projects the image onto the windshield.

It uses several mirrors to magnify the image, and (probably more importantly) adjust the image to take the angle of the windshield into account.

Usually they can have their height adjusted a bit, and they may have a “focus” adjustment, but to be able to make it appear closer or farther away, I think it would need a completely different set of mirrors.

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