Today, Eastman Chemical Group collaborated with Scottish AR display and application innovator Ceres Holographics to develop and distribute an “industry’s first” XR-ready vehicle windshield. The team is debuting the windshield at the Car.HMI Europe event on June 27 during a speaker session called “Look Ahead: Smarter Transparent Displays for Enhanced Safety, Comfort, and UX.”
Andy Travers, the CEO of Ceres, added:
Through deep technical collaboration with global supply chain expert Eastman and our ongoing engagement with top OEMs, we are now ready to bring an automotive-grade holographic transparent display HUD solution to market. With increasing concerns about safety distractions caused by other types of in-car information displays, such as large pillar-to-pillar touchscreens and other ‘look down’ displays, this HUD technology presents a viable and attractive alternative.
According to the partners, the display technology also provides the industry’s largest display for in-vehicle immersive visualisations. Additionally, the company is integrating its Ceres digital mastering technology and HoloFlekt replication capabilities to enable superior configurability, a rapid design process, and the most cost-effective manufacturing for product scaling.
Scalable and Customisation Development Process
Eastman supplies its proprietary lamination techniques to facilitate the product’s development. The firm’s techniques, in combination with Ceres’ HoloFlekt technology, enable holographic HUDs for vehicles—which the Scottish firm describes as holographic optical elements (HOEs).
Moreover, the collaboration enables Ceres to create a scalable and cost-effective manufacturing process. The holographic display is produced via a custom manufacturing process that allows Ceres to apply the display technology on any glass surface, thanks to Eastman’s proprietary lamination process. Once a chosen windscreen integrates the immersive display technology, drivers can see AR HUD elements via a discreet LED projector.
Romain Delorme, the Global HUD Segment Market Manager at Eastman, also said:
We have been working with Ceres for several years to understand the implementation requirements for their HOE films to be integrated in automotive approved windshields in a scalable way. After having produced several proofs of concepts of single HUD display for OEMs, we believe this current implementation of multi-HOE films for transparent displays expands the possibility even further and will be attractive to OEMs who want to differentiate their vehicles, enhance operational safety, and upgrade the overall user experience.
The bespoke HoloFlekt film implementation development process, therefore, allows Ceres to fit a vehicle individually, customising each windshield based on OEM specifications such as size, position, and viewing angle.
Increasingly, assistive reality solutions are finding homes in industrial sectors, notably for repair and training operations via smartglasses. However, the Ceres Holographics vehicle display shows a trend of XR visualisation tools escaping the confines of head-mounted displays.
