howme

There's a simple fix to this that I wish Audi went with from the beginning.
For me I don't wear sunglasses so the polarization isn't a problem, but I can assume they went with vertical polarization, instead of a normal horizontal on a basic LCD panel, to help compensate for the curvature of the windshield, they also use a lens to help compensate for that curve as well.
To me I can't stand the "black" areas of the screen showing up when its really dark outside, and the simple fix for all of this is to us an OLED panel with no polarization. I even poked around to see if I could swap it out. It would be much clearer and much more contrast. Just a thought.

njspeedfreak

You don't really get to chose the direction that reflected light is polarized in - it's a result of the reflection itself and polarization direction is in the same plane as the reflection. In laymans terms, that means an image projected up at a windshield is going to have pretty much the same polarization as sunlight that is reflected off the surface of a pond. And sunglasses are specifically polarized to filter out the latter, so they are almost always going to have a negative effect on HU displays. Now there are some optical tricks that can help mitigate this, but they have other tradeoffs and will add costs.

howme

You know I was stuck thinking about LCD screen and how they do polarize light in particular direction in order to create a black.

I skipped out on thinking about reflections in general. I’m curious if some of the polarization from the LCD is coming through via the reflection? Like if you put just say your phone led flashlight up on the dash to reflect, are they both “dimmed” as much with the polarized lens? Just a curious thought.

njspeedfreak

Seems like a simple enough test. Without digging in to much I suspect the answer is "kind of". The main difference is that the reflection of non polarized light will probably be a bit stronger than the reflection of polarized light to some extent, even before the sunglasses have a chance to filter out the reflected polarized light.

Polarization is a weird physics issue. Do a youtube search of stacking multiple polarizing filters in a light path - it creates some very counter intuitive effects. Sort of falls into the same bucket as magnets - as the Insane Clown Posse ask - "how do they f*&*&g work?"