LucidDrive - Products - LucidDrive
LucidDrive is a standalone Night Driving Simulation. It makes use of the latest modern graphics hardware technology to show almost photorealistic lighting scenes in real time. The primary function of LucidDrive is to evaluate beam patterns of vehicle headlamps under conditions as realistic as possible. It is an ideal software tool to provide the virtual reality simulation, prior to expensive fabrication and testing.
Beam Pattern Analysis
One can switch between various sets of headlamps to verify the differences in resulting beam patterns. For example, the headlamp sets can be a combination of left- and right-aimed low beam lamps. Any number of headlamps with different aiming positions can be combined and mounted on the car. Distance marker lines on the road are included to provide visibility targets for benchmarking. In the left Figure you see the aiming wall with ECE-Markers. This wall can be popped up at any time during the drive.
Multi View
LucidDrive provides the user with multi-view drive capability to compare and troubleshoot the resulting beam patterns. For example, the direct comparison between Halogen and Xenon headlamps with different color temperatures can be achieved with LucidDrive very easily. If the LID was rendered spectrally by LucidShape, even color borders of dispersions by lenses can be seen on the street.
AFS - Adaptive Front Lighting System
One of the most challenging innovation in automotive lighting are AFS headlamps. Several approaches are being invented to accomplish the specifications. Therefore LucidShape is able to simulate AFS in different ways. Depending on the computer hardware, you are able to simulate up to 30 light distributions simultaneously. Further developments in graphics cards will make even more possible. Other modern lighting models as daytime light etc. can be simulated as well.
Real Time
LucidDrive runs in an automatic driving mode. The user can switch quickly between different lamps, viewing positions, road types and scenes during a simulation, thus receiving an immediate interactive feedback. With the addon “Wheels and Pedals” you are able to control the vehicles movements via a steering wheel, with gas pedals attached.
Custom Roads
LucidDrive comes with a large selection of road scenes and the ability to create new courses with the “Road Editor” tool by simply editing the track as a sequence of points. From such a polygonal sequence and additional road information (e.g. “four lane highway” or “country side road”) to be selected from a broad variety of road types, the software will create a continuous, curved road. The created curves adhere to the mathematical form of a clothoid curve. Additionally, you can add overhead signs, normal signs, trees, poles and other objects to the road.
Video Export
During the drive simulation, all video frames can be automatically exported as bitmaps and in a subsequent process merged into a movie. So you can play the video always in realtime on every computer without having LucidDrive installed and show your customers the advantages of your products. You’ll find some example videos on our LucidDrive homepage.
Advanced Graphics
The software features photo-realistic and texture-based graphics. It is using a complex mathematical model to convert the realistic physical models into graphics. The LucidDrive model takes into account surface properties, e.g. reflectivity of the street pavement and the scenery (trees, roadside markers and traffic signs). The photo-realistic appearance is accomplished by using textures and latest hardware shading technology. LucidDrive is optimized to run best with nVidia graphics cards. The system requirements can be found on the LucidDrive homepage.
