How 360-Degree Bird’s Eye Car Cameras Work

Texas Instruments is a manufacturer and supplier of one such system. The company explains in a whitepaper that the Automotive Advanced Driver Assistance System uses an array of 180-degree cameras, a system-on-chip (SoC) processor, and some clever programming to stitch together images from four to six cameras mounted on the front bumper, rear bumper, and sides of a vehicle. Each camera captures super-wide views of its surroundings, and algorithms align geometry in the overlapping imagery from adjacent cameras, effectively stitching it all together. Collecting and combining the data is just one part of the equation, though. 

Before stitching the images from the different cameras together, the SoC has to correct the distortion and artifacts produced by the fish-eye lenses, as well as engage in perspective transformation, which makes the image appear more like a shot captured from above. After correction, the system performs brightness, white balance, and color balancing to compensate for any differences between the content. This ensures the final image that reaches the driver via the infotainment system looks cohesive without obvious seams. The result is a seemingly magical look at the car’s surroundings, but there is a gap where the vehicle should be. 

That gap is filled by superimposing the vehicle into the generated video feed. The system is not plug-and-play, and each vehicle design requires some research and development to tune the algorithm’s parameters. For some larger vehicles, it’s still not always easy to judge the scale of vehicles when they’re represented on a screen inside the car, so manufacturers often include perimeter lines and guidelines that show the projected path based on the orientation of the steering wheel, as well.