By Evan Ackerman

If you’ve ever driven a car in a video game, you’ll almost certainly be familiar with the fact that it’s way easier to avoid running into stuff if you’re using a third person view. That is, viewing the car from outside (slightly above and behind) as opposed to from behind the steering wheel. A third person perspective lets you see not just most of the car itself, but also what’s going on around the car, in areas that would otherwise be blind spots.

A Taiwan company called SPTek has figured out a way to use an array of cameras to generate a 3-D “Around View Monitor” that can show you multiple different views of the outside of your car. Use a top-down view for tight parking spaces, a front view looking backwards for highway lane changes, or a see-through rear view for pulling out into traffic. It’s not a video game, it’s the next step in safety.  …[Read more]