Patent ID: 7088262

Claim:
A method of operating a display system in a vehicle for finding a suitable parking place, the method comprising: recording an area of observation in the vicinity of the vehicle with at least one camera; processing image data coming from the camera with an image processing unit; displaying on a display screen in the interior of the vehicle the image data coming from the image processing unit as a current image showing a potential parking place; superimposing a parking place symbol, which symbolizes true to scale an area in the current image which the vehicle may occupy that is generally parallel but offset from a current position of the vehicle or offset at an angle to a current position of the vehicle and which area the vehicle can reach when parking, starting from the current position, taking into account the properties of the vehicle, including the size of the vehicle and the maximum steering angle by the image processing unit onto the current image on the display screen, with the area having dimensions corresponding to the vehicle and displayed true to the scale of the displayed image data; and positioning the car in a suitable starting position for approaching the potential parking place whereby the parking place symbol is moved and brought into complete correspondence with the potential parking place providing a visual indication as to whether the potential parking place is of sufficient size for the vehicle.