Fujitsu 3D 360-Degree Car Camera System Gets New SoC

Reversing cameras on cars and trucks aren't new, but Fujitsu has been working on a full 360-degree system that could give a seamless view around a vehicle from just four cameras.  The wrap-around video system consists of the new Fujitsu MB86R11 2D/3D "Emerald L" Graphics SoC and the companion developers toolset; the end result is a 3D hemispheric view of the vehicle's surroundings from a dynamically definable perspective or "free eye point."

"Conventional multi-camera "bird's eye view" technologies" suggests Fujitsu, "stitch together two-dimensional images, often resulting in distorted image."  Instead, their system promises a more accurate representation of corners and blind-spots; you can either look out from the front, sides or back of the vehicle, or see an overview of it within its surroundings.  More details here [pdf link].

The MB86R11 SoC, meanwhile, pairs a 400MHz ARM Cortex A9 CPU and a custom OpenGL 2.0-compliant graphics core with a unified shader array and 16 parallel floating point units.  It can support five displays and four independent video inputs simultaneously, capture 720p HD video, and has gigabit ethernet, four USB 2.0 and SATA/PATA storage connections ; more details here [pdf link].  Samples are already available for automotive developers, priced at around $39, and hopefully we'll be seeing this tech show up in cars sometime soon.