360 degree surround camera system advice?

[rendyr]

I have a 2017 '86 SE, and think it would be nice to have a 360degree bird's eye view parking camera system on the car. Not only for parking but as for a front/rear DVR as well.

I run an engineering company with access to 3D scanners and CAD software, so any custom pieces for camera housings, etc are no problem. I am looking for advice on high quality cameras and video quad-plexor that won't break after a short time (as I have seen others complain about online on Amazon, etc.).

I would be looking to have a push-button on the center panel behind the gearshift (between the traction control and Track mode buttons) turn on the camera and cycle through modes....as a backup sensor is great and all, but there are times when parking, etc that you are not backing up, and would want to cycle through the camera display modes.

I am looking for nice/clean video (though I know that headunits might not display the best video....but that can be fixed later

Thanks!

[Mr.ac]

Wut?

Sounds like you bought the wrong car.
Also sounds like your google-fu is weak.

Sell car. Buy a nice Infinity Q60. Comes with 360 degrees cameras.
Problem solved.

[rendyr]

I don't really post here much, but I have found that, in general, this community is nice and supportive of people wanting to do things to their vehicle.

I guess saying that I should not own this vehicle at all is one way to go, but I was just asking for others' experience with trying to create something new. It might not be a turbo kit or some exterior flashy trim piece, but anyone trying to do anything to their car should be supported... Not told to sell their car and go away.

Everyone can have their opinion, but why even post something designed to get people to not use this resource at all?

Does anyone have any helpful advice on if anyone has worked with camera setups like this?

[RayRay88]

I'm guessing it's a bunch of carefully placed fish eye lenses. I imagine there's one front and back, and one on either side rear view mirror. I bet the real challenge is going to be getting them to display properly to provide the illusion of birds eye, and how to incorporate that into whatever I.C.E. system you have.

[Leonardo]

Originally Posted by rendyr

I have a 2017 '86 SE, and think it would be nice to have a 360degree bird's eye view parking camera system on the car. Not only for parking but as for a front/rear DVR as well.

I run an engineering company with access to 3D scanners and CAD software, so any custom pieces for camera housings, etc are no problem. I am looking for advice on high quality cameras and video quad-plexor that won't break after a short time (as I have seen others complain about online on Amazon, etc.).

I would be looking to have a push-button on the center panel behind the gearshift (between the traction control and Track mode buttons) turn on the camera and cycle through modes....as a backup sensor is great and all, but there are times when parking, etc that you are not backing up, and would want to cycle through the camera display modes.

I am looking for nice/clean video (though I know that headunits might not display the best video....but that can be fixed later

Thanks!

I have been on this forum since 2012 and have never seen a custom "birds eye view 360 degree multiple camera system".


A quick google search shows a system on amazon for $180. (probably the one you are talking about)


Most people here install one or two cameras.


Additionally, how much are you willing to spend on this custom camera setup? Because, when you start buying cameras that can be linked together, you can spend big bucks.

[rendyr]

Thanks for the nice replies!

There are camera systems out there (yep, I saw the Amazon ones)....and they come with the the video multiplexor that stitches the views together.

Since I am in the engineering world, creating bottom plates for the mirrors as well as nice mounts for the front/back are not a problem.

I was initially thinking of a recording/DVR dashcam/front camera....but then I said to myself, "If I'm going to do the work for one camera, why not add in something that is the hot newness while I'm at it!"

We are looking at cars for my wife (not really an FT86 target demographic, sadly and all her vehicle she is consider have the 360 degree camera....and I want the same for my car as well!

I am seeking any kit that others can vouch for, if others have done this....in terms of good camera quality, etc.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Mr.ac

Wut?

Sounds like you bought the wrong car.
Also sounds like your google-fu is weak.

Sell car. Buy a nice Infinity Q60. Comes with 360 degrees cameras.
Problem solved.

that was uncalled for.....

Might I suggest a dietary supplement?

@rendyr , ol Mr.ac jest gets this way from time to time, especially when he is out of stock of Civics. However, it appears he does have a Infinity Q60 on his lot …


humfrz

[antmit]

Originally Posted by rendyr

Thanks for the nice replies!

There are camera systems out there (yep, I saw the Amazon ones)....and they come with the the video multiplexor that stitches the views together.

Since I am in the engineering world, creating bottom plates for the mirrors as well as nice mounts for the front/back are not a problem.

I was initially thinking of a recording/DVR dashcam/front camera....but then I said to myself, "If I'm going to do the work for one camera, why not add in something that is the hot newness while I'm at it!"

We are looking at cars for my wife (not really an FT86 target demographic, sadly and all her vehicle she is consider have the 360 degree camera....and I want the same for my car as well!

I am seeking any kit that others can vouch for, if others have done this....in terms of good camera quality, etc.

Interesting topic. I went from a car with 360 "birds eye view" and parking sensors to the 86 and it did take some getting used to.

As far as I can tell, what's on the market as a package will never be as good as a custom built solution. Starting with the cameras themselves, they tend to be grainy in the dark or low resolution in general. Then there's the device that blends the feeds together. Most systems I've seen require the use of a calibration mat and physical adjustments to the camera to get it to stitch, somewhat correctly. Where it meets never seems to look seamless.

My guess as to why this is, is because they probably don't want to beef up the computing unit that performs the stitching.
The lower the resolution, the less computing power required to stitch multiple streams together. If you start using nice high end 4k cameras and you want to stitch that together seamlessly in realtime, to produce a composite image of 4k camera feeds the data to process becomes quite intense relative to solutions on the market today.

You're an engineer so you understand tradeoffs!

I recently started doing some software development with openCV and recognized that it would probably also help in your endeavour.
I found a tutorial here https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2016/0...g-with-opencv/ that you could read into. It solves the 2 camera case. Doesn't look like it'd be too much work to extend it to the 4 camera case.

[rendyr]

That's a great find, antmit! Are you the person who posted the job on the website the author referred to?

https://jobs.pyimagesearch.com/job/l...f-the-vehicle/

If someone can make a Raspberry Pi stitch together nice 1080p cameras, that would be a boon to a lot of people...the ones out there now are not very compelling.

[JonnyObnoxious]

Did you have any luck with this? I'm interested in doing the same. I've seen that some of the newer aftermarket head units have 360° camera support. There's a good handful of the camera systems on Amazon.

Ultimately, I'd like 360° cameras and and insde camera dash view as well.

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