View management for driver assistance in an HMD

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) have the potential to overcome some of the technological limitations of currently existing automotive head-up displays (HUDs), such as the limited field of view and the restrictive boundaries of the windshield. However, in a formative study, we identified other, partially known problems with HMDs regarding content stability and occlusion. As a counter-measure we propose a novel layout mechanism for HMD visualization, which, on the one hand, benefits from the unique characteristics of HMDs and, on the other, combines the advantages of headstabilized and cockpit-stabilized content. By subdividing the HMD’s field of view into different slots to which the content is dynamically assigned depending on the user’s head rotation, we ensure that the driver’s vision is effectively augmented in every possible direction.