[Orcnet] VASI lights for garage lineup?

[Keith Lofstrom]

Greetings:

I've been off at conferences and busy moving, so I haven't
been able to attend meetings for a while.  See you this month...

---

We hope to have the garage cleared of moving stuff in a month
or so, and actually be able to back our cars into it.  It is
plenty wide enough, but my wife and I are lousy at backing 
up, and we might end up hitting stuff on the sides or the
other car.  A visual lineup tool, adjusted for each car, 
would be handy.

Visual flight rules aircraft, landing on runways, use something
called VASI lights (Visual Approach and Slope Indicator) to
arrive at the end of the runway with the correct 3 degree
glide slope.  These are simple boxes, with two stacked open
cavities with colored lights inside, pointed towards the
arriving aircraft.  If one box is showing white lights and the
other red, you are on the proper glide slope - if they are all
white you are coming in too steep, and if they are all red you
are coming in too low. 

A similar device could be constructed for garages, turned 90
degrees and aimed at the side mirrors of the car.  So if you
are too far left you see all red, too far right and you see
all white (not unlike politics).  I would activate it with the
garage door opener circuit, and it would stay on for perhaps
60 seconds.  For the relatively short distances, some bright
LEDs would do the job.

I couldn't find anything like this on line - but there oughta
be.  Does anyone know of something like this?  Alternatively,
does this seem like a salable product, and would somebody 
sell me one of the first prototypes?

Keith

P.S. - I kinda suspect the market would be small, as most
people's opinion of their own driving skills are insanely
optimistic, and any kind of accident is ALWAYS somebody
else's fault ("You moved the garage!").  Still, I expect
one could sell ten thousand or so over the web, nationally.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs