NVIDIA Project Mercury

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang presenting Project Mercury at CES 2014

NVIDIA's Project Mercury resulted from the culmination of many late nights (sometimes sleepless) from members of our software team, including myself.  We are happy to see it finally completed and I wanted to share with you some images of the project as well as some thoughts about what it took to complete the project.

Backstory:
Last year our team pondered what the vehicle cockpit of the future would look like.  We dreamed up several possibilities that included 3D gauges that would morph from a traditional cluster to a more exotic sport type arrangement and shape, and even rethinking the concept of what an instrument cluster ought to be.

Early Mercury concept Touring Mode

Early Mercury concept Sport Mode

Many will not fully understand what really goes into the design process, especially when you are pressed for time.  There are many really good - often conflicting - ideas and ultimately the challenge is to create a design that meets a dozen or so criteria from many different people.

3D model of Project Mercury instrument cluster (Modo 701)

3D model of single gauge (Modo 701)

There were three challenges for me: 1) Satisfying the requirements set forth by the group, 2) creating content that will render photo-realistic gauges on mobile hardware at 60 fps and 3) struggling with my own internal design conflicts.  I learned to openly criticize my own work and feeling ok with that.  It is difficult for creative people to critique their work but I found that by criticizing my work I liberated myself from the pressure to settle with a poor solution.

I am incredibly happy with the results of our work and I learned a lot from the team (and our CEO) about the collaborative process.  Designing this instrument cluster, at least for me, meant listening to other's views and adapting my native style to work with the grand vision. Although this project had its emotional ups and downs, I would do it all over again and enjoy the creative process.  It's the journey sometimes and not the destination.

Project Mercury inside UI Composer Studio authoring environment

The resulting instrument cluster was about the fifth or sixth revision, with the last revision taking two days to model and complete just in time for CES 2014.  Under the gun and with expectations high, I believe we all did a great job.

NVIDIA Project Mercury

Project Mercury was intended to demonstrate the power of Tegra K1 and its ability to render physically accurate materials in real-time on automotive hardware.  This seemed impossible four months ago but we did it!  In addition to our MDL technology, our software team was also able to include effects like ambient occlusion (AO), cast shadows, specular bloom and depth-of-field.

NVIDIA Project Mercury

NVIDIA Project Mercury

NVIDIA Project Mercury

Some may question the merits of rendering physically accurate 3D instrument clusters in real-time on mobile hardware. My response is simply that automakers cannot afford to build complex and beautiful analog instrument clusters with real materials without breaking the bank.  This technology is a financial and creative breakthrough.  It allows the OEM to create a gauge that can look like anything and be completely customizable at the same time.

-Doza