Head-up display (And how to fixate stuff with 1/10 mm precision)

[HUDguy]

Hi all!

I wonder if anyone here has used head-up displays with their camera?
Head-up display - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I want to build a simple head-up display (HUD), i.e. a transparent leaning glass in front of the camera lens which reflects light from a second direction, laying that light over the (main) motive which is in front of the lens. I want to use it for having some LED lights indicate some real time sensor data in the motive of the images. By having the LEDs in darkness below the lens, I hope that a 45 degree thin glass in front of the lens will be clearly transparent and reflect only bright LEDs, and I want them to appear as dots at the bottom of the images.

What do you spontaneously think about such an idea? Have I even managed to explain it???

My problem is how to build a simple HUD (because I don't believe they exist for sale). I need to fix a thin piece of glass with high precision (1/10 mm I think) in front of the camera lens. I need the camera with the HUD to remain mobile. I imagine some kind of structure made up of finely adjustable clamps and pincers which can hold the glass and LEDs at fix positions to the camera. I bit like distances are fine tuned with a microscope.

How do you fixate tiny objects which you want to take close up pictures of?

 

[Big Mike]

I also have an idea. I want to make something that is round, I could attach it to some sort of axle in the middle and use it for transportation. :er:

In other words, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Most digital cameras these days have LCD screens and 'live view' mode. They give you all sorts of information on the screen, in real time. Heck, even looking through the viewfinder of any SLR camera, just about all the information you need, is already visible. All of this without putting a piece of glass in front of the lens, which would surely hurt image quality anyway.

 

[HUDguy]

Well, I figure that if I can make a HUD, even of a very simple kind, then I can have almost anything display any data in the images of any camera in *exact* real time. Even if the engineer at Samsung whatever didn't think about my particular sensor when he designed that ridiculous little LCD display, and refused to endow the camera with a USB-host and real time programming capability...

 

[spacefuzz]

Wouldn't it be easier to just use a streaming downlink to a laptop and overlay whatever data you want on the image? Or just take the exit data and display time stamp etc?

Don't get me wrong, a HUD could be cool, but make sure your not over thinking your problem.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Your HUD will be extremely OOF, first because it is far too within the working minimum focusing distance for most lenses, and second because it will be at an angle to the focal plane.

 

[Derrel]

HUDguy, well, the idea sounds great!!! It truly does! While you are designing it, I was wondering if you think maybe you could help me by doing some mechanical engineering work on a laser-guided toast-buttering system I have been kicking around; it's a system that would allow me to evenly spread butter on a toasted piece of bread to within 1/10 of a millimeter from edge-to-edge, at the same dispersion rate across the entire toasted surface, while somehow allowing for melting as the ever-increasing butter temperature as the knife advances from the first edge of the bread to the second. I think it might be as simple as reversing the direction of travel across the surface of the toast once the first stroke of butter has been applied; any thoughts on this? I call it the LASE-BUTT system...sounds like "lazy" and "but", but said really fast...

 

[spacefuzz]

HUDguy, well, the idea sounds great!!! It truly does! While you are designing it, I was wondering if you think maybe you could help me by doing some mechanical engineering work on a laser-guided toast-buttering system I have been kicking around; it's a system that would allow me to evenly spread butter on a toasted piece of bread to within 1/10 of a millimeter from edge-to-edge, at the same dispersion rate across the entire toasted surface, while somehow allowing for melting as the ever-increasing butter temperature as the knife advances from the first edge of the bread to the second. I think it might be as simple as reversing the direction of travel across the surface of the toast once the first stroke of butter has been applied; any thoughts on this? I call it the LASE-BUTT system...sounds like "lazy" and "but", but said really fast...

Darrel, my wife actually already does this. At a precision of 1/20th mm even, exceeding your specs! You can purchased buttered toast from her for $2.99 per slice, complete with ISO 9001 certification documentation.

 

[480sparky44 44]

Outside of the HUD portion, there's already plenty of screens that are capable of doing this exact same thing.

Most of us call 'em laptops.

There are also several manufacturers who produce small screens dedicated for looking at 'live view' images directly from the camera.

 

[penfolderoldo]

hmmm... well, aside from the 'seriously - why...?' side of things, i'm pretty sure if this was something that had any sort of potential someone at Nikon, Canon, Sigma, etc etc would've done it by now...

 

[HUDguy]

I'll just ignore the idiots Big Mike and Derrel, whose mashed brains spilled out on their keyboards. I don't understand why this large forum has no moderation at all, to prevent idiots from spamming it with OT and personal attacks.

spacefuzz:
Firstly, a laptop would be way to large, I need a truly mobile and agile device. Secondly, even if I stream sensor data to a laptop, then I need to know the exact point in time when the picture was taken. I don't have a camera which tells me that with single millisecond precision. Nor does it stream images to a laptop with millisecond precision. I would only know when the image reaches the laptop, not when it was taken. The lag between is not subject to real time programming, but is a secret of the camera/OS.

Bitter Jeweler:
Out of focus and distortions due to the angle will not be a problem, because I want the HUD to display only a row of LEDs. They will binary code the sensor data. It will be easy to see which ones are lit, even if they are fuzzy blobs. I hope that the HUD will display nothing but the LEDs, by masking them and keeping the HUD-reflected area dark.

penfolderoldo:
I suppose that demand isn't big enough for this to become an off-the-shelf product. And in five-ten years the connectivity and real time capability of cameras will likely be good enough even for this need I have now.

 

[Tomasko]

I'll just ignore the idiots Big Mike and Derrel, whose mashed brains spilled out on their keyboards. I don't understand why this large forum has no moderation at all, to prevent idiots from spamming it with OT and personal attacks.

There was nothing offensive on what Big Mike said, he just stated what we all really think. And the same applies to Derrel, even though he doesn't care that much about the choice of words...
Either way, Mike is a moderator here, so if you keep calling him an idiot, I think your membership here will be pretty much short-lived...

Well, and about that idea of yours....... I don't think you can construct something like that in your home.
If you think, that OOF won't be a problem, try it with one led hand-hold in front of the lens. Put the camera on a tripod and try to simulate the situation.

 

[HUDguy]

There are also several manufacturers who produce small screens dedicated for looking at 'live view' images directly from the camera.

I don't quite understand. Do you mean that I should take images of the live view of another camera? With a little screen on which I can overlay data? I'd be interested in a link to such a device.

 

[Overread19]

I'm confused as to what is you are trying to create and why?
It seems you want to record a row of LED lights that will be appearing as a hud over the main captured image to display the millisecond that a camera shot was taken right? Why not then just use a wider angle or move back a pace and include the LED display in the photo itself - that way recording which lights were on (thus telling you the millisecond time you want) on the photo itself

 

[HUDguy]

I don't think you can construct something like that in your home.
If you think, that OOF won't be a problem, try it with one led hand-hold in front of the lens. Put the camera on a tripod and try to simulate the situation.

It's a thin piece of glass in front of the lower part of the lens, tilted about 45 degrees. The trick is to fix it to the camera in a stable and portable way. The HUD-glass needs to be placed with sub-millimeter precision and there's no dedicated docking facility for that purpose.

And of course a tilted glass in front of the lens reflects light from a right angle. Even a daylight handheld test shows that very clearly. The LEDs might be decimeter from the glass, so I don't think they will all become one single blur, but will remain individually identifiable.

 

[Overread19]

Just to add, but a reflected image that close to the lens itself isn't there a good chance that the camera will simply not see the LEDs at all - rather like the way close up wire hardly ever appears (barring a local contrast area dip) when shooting right up to wire netting.