[graaja]

Installed: Modiber 360 Degree Camera in My Toyota Fortuner 4x4 AT

Last month, I bought a Toyota Fortuner 4x4 Diesel AT. As I am switching from a sedan to an SUV first time, with the big size of the SUV, I wanted a good 360-degree camera system for ease of parking and navigating in tight spots. At the time of purchase, the sales consultant Mr. Rahul at the Toyota dealership had mentioned the availability of a 360-degree camera as an authorized accessory that would be installed at the dealership without any effect on the car's warranty. He had mentioned the brand as Modiber.

So, I researched to find out more about this unit and for reviews. Surprisingly, I could not find much information except a few posts here in TBHP in the Innova Crysta and the Fortuner review threads, but no details. Then I found this Instagram post by PerfAmana that showed a demo of the system.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWX4vTtB7Hl/?hl=en

Though not as good as some setups I have seen in some cars that come installed from the factory, this looked decent enough for an aftermarket setup. So I decided to go ahead with the installation.

I thought of writing this thread to share my experience in the installation of this system, my likes and dislikes, and some details on the features and quality of the system for the benefit of current and future Fortuner and Crysta owners. Before I go into the actual installation and features of the system, I would like to add a few words on my experience with the Toyota dealership and the installer. Skip to the next post for details on the installation and the system.

Installation Experience:

Right from the test drive to the delivery of the car, I have been very happy with the support provided by Mr. Rahul at Annamalais Toyota, Coimbatore. He has been very responsive to all my queries and has been a great support. He handled the installation of the system as well.

This 360-degree camera has been developed by Modiber for Toyota cars and installs seamlessly into the existing entertainment system. For Coimbatore, the installation is handled by the installer from Modiber's dealer in Chennai. Usually, it takes about 4 to 5 days to get the system after the order is placed and a couple more days to arrange for the installation. As I had an upcoming long drive, Mr. Rahul spoke with Modiber's dealer and arranged the installation within two days of placing the order.

I took the car to the dealership at 10 AM and the installer from Modiber had already arrived with the hardware. The installer turned out to be a little inexperienced. He made a few mistakes in removing trims, fumbled during wiring, was trying to open up the whole ORVM assembly while only a plate below the ORVM had to be removed etc. He also struggled to calibrate the camera and could not manage to get a seamless 360-degree image after hours of calibration. We had to call off the work at 7:30 PM. I was very unhappy with the results. Apart from the distorted 360-degree image, the guidelines were also not proper.

Mr. Rahul apologized for this confusion and promised he would get this resolved as soon as possible. He told me that usually, an experienced installer comes from Chennai who finishes the work quickly and also finishes the calibration accurately. He promised me he would get this experienced installer to come and fix all the problems. As promised he arranged this experienced installer two days later. I took the car again to the dealership at 10:30. This experienced installer solved all the problems within an hour. The previous installer had brought the wrong mats for calibration which was the reason why calibration was not possible. This experienced installer had brought the right mats. He adjusted the cameras physically to the right angle and finished calibration. He also calibrated the guidelines to match the width of the car. After this, the result was very good.

In summary, though I was unhappy with the results the first time, all my concerns were satisfactorily resolved, and I am happy with the support provided by Mr. Rahul and Mr. Venkat, head of the accessories installation team in getting the system working correctly. Hope this good support continues with the service section in the years to come.

[graaja]

Cost of the system:
I was quoted 36K for the system. Final invoice came to 35.1K

Modiber 360 Camera Likes and Dislikes:

What I like:

• Toyota approved accessory. Warranty is not affected
• Integrates well with the existing system. Taps into the CAN bus to get details like door open signal, reverse gear signal, turn indicator signals, forward and reverse parking sensors etc.
• Reverse camera angle with dynamic guidelines is far superior than the one that comes with the car
• Integrates the information from parking sensors and provides information about how close or farther objects are
• Front camera angles can help navigating tight spots

What I don't like:

• Tacky remote control unit
• Video quality is just average. This could be because of the quality of the head unit as well
• Exposure difference between the front camera and other three cameras
• 360 view could be a little better. The distance between objects in the 360 view is a little closer than actual. Will take time to get used to

Modiber 360 Camera Installation:

Following are the steps involved in installing the system.

• Boot trim is removed, and the license plate light is removed.
• A new enclosure for the license plate light is used in which the camera and the light are fixed
• The new enclosure with camera and plate light is installed
• The wire from the camera is routed through the roof liner to behind the glove box and connected to the control unit
• The door trims are removed
• The ORVMs are removed
• The plastic trims below the ORVMs are removed and holes are drilled. Rubber grommets are installed and the cameras are inserted. ORVMs are fitted back.
• Cables are routed from the ORVMs to behind the glove box and connected to the control unit
• The front camera is installed on the bumper below the logo. The cable is routed through the firewall to behind the glovebox and connected to the control unit
• Head unit is removed and the two connectors from the existing wiring harness are removed from the HU
• The adapter wiring harness is inserted between the existing wiring harness and the HU. The other side of this adapter harness is routed to behind the glovebox and fixed to the controller unit.
• The controller unit is mounted behind the glove box
• An IR receiver is temporarily connected to the control unit and calibration is done using an IR remote control. This IR receiver is removed after calibration is done
• The glove box is fixed covering the control unit.
• A remote control unit is fixed on the center console using which the 360-degree camera unit and the views can be controlled.

Below are some pictures of the installation.

Inside the box. The box comes with the control unit, the cameras, and all the wiring needed for the installation. Everything is clean plug and play.


The control unit.


The boot trim is being removed.


Boot trim removed.


The camera is fixed to a new enclosure that has the license plate light.


The rear camera assembly is fixed to the license plate light opening.


The door trim is removed.


A hole is drilled in the trim below the ORVM, and a rubber grommet is inserted.


The side camera is being installed below the ORVM.


The side camera fixed.


Side camera wiring through the door.


The front camera is installed below the logo.


The front camera wire is routed through the firewall.


The head unit is removed.


The connectors from HU disconnected. The new wiring harness goes between these connectors and the HU.


All cables are brought behind the glove box and connected to the controller unit.


The control unit is fixed behind the glove box.

[graaja]

Calibration - 1st Attempt

Once the hardware installation is complete, all the removed trims are fixed back and the calibration begins. Two mats are placed in front and behind the car. These mats are white in color with black squares on both the ends. During calibration, a snapshot is taken from all the cameras. In each of the snapshot, two of the black squares are visible. Using the calibration menu, the corners of the black squares of the mats are marked in each of the images. Once this is done, the controller now does some calculations and creates the algorithm to stitch the images from the four cameras to create a 360 degree view.

When the installer was trying to do the calibration, we found that not all corners of the black squares were visible in all the images. The front bonnet was obscuring two corners of the squares in the front right and front left squares. It turned out that the installer had brought the wrong mat that is used for narrower cars. The Fortuner being wider, the squares were getting obscured by the bonnet.

When I pointed this out, he said that it was ok and that he would locate the corners approximately. I tried to convince him this would not work, but he still went ahead. After calibration, the stitched image was not continuous and there was ghosting on the black squares in the front.

A few pictures from the calibration.

Calibration mat being placed.


Calibration mat in the front. Notice how far the mat is placed from the car. Even when the mat is placed this far, the black squares are not fully visible.


Calibration mat in the rear.


IR remote being used to calibrate. The person on the left is holding the IR receiver that is connected to the control unit.


Calibrating the squares from the front camera. In the front and rear camera views, all the corners of the squares were visible.


Calibrating the squares from the side camera (left side). Notice how the two corners on the front left are not visible and hidden by the bonnet.


The end result. See how the front side has ghosting of the squares.


Another view of the ghosting I took the next day morning by the side of the road. See how the road is not continuous.


Here is another image of the car parked in my portico. There is a concrete pillar on the right side of the car in my portico which is not visible in the image and the image is a complete mess.


After several attempts by the installer to calibrate, the ghosting still remained. And we called it off by 7:30 PM. I brought the car back the day after the next day to complete the calibration.

[graaja]

Calibration - 2nd Attempt

The experienced installer brought the correct mat for the Fortuner. In this mat, the black squares were farther apart. This makes the squares visible completely in all the cameras. The installer also adjusted the angle of the cameras to get the perfect alignment.

I had reported four issues that needed to be fixed.

1. The car color is not correct
2. The guidelines in the rear and front cameras were narrower. The guidelines are supposed to represent the width (or a little more) of the car such that objects outside the guidelines should not hit the car. However, the objects shown to be outside the guidelines were one foot inside the body of the car.
3. Alignment has to be redone and ghosting has to be fixed.
4. The exposure of the front camera is a little less than the other cameras. Because of this, in the 360-degree view, a quarter of the image was darker.

The installer fixed problems #1, #2, and #3 within one hour. But he told me nothing could be done about the exposure of the cameras. So I let it go. But later I found a menu in which the exposure of the cameras can be adjusted. More about this later.

Here are a few pictures from this 2nd attempt.

The correct mats are being placed.


The front front camera is being calibrated.


The side camera is being calibrated. Notice how all the corners of both squares are visible.


The 360-degree view from the top. Notice how the calibration mats are visible without any ghosting.


A view of the car parked in the portico. The portico is more accurately shown in this picture including the pillar.


The guidelines calibration menu. The menu is used to set the offset and gain of the guidelines. Initially, he did a rough calibration with surrounding objects. However, when the guidelines were observed with the calibration mats in place, they were still inaccurate. I insisted that he redo the calibration using the calibration mats.


Guidelines for the rear camera accurately calibrated to the calibration mat. Now the lines represent about 4 inches wider than the body of the car. So, if there is an object, say a wall or lamp post exactly touching the guideline, it would be 4 inches away from the body of the car.


Guidelines accurately calibrated for the front camera.

[graaja]

My Thoughts About the 360 Degree Camera System:

Here are some of my thoughts on the system.

Though the 360-degree view is constructed seamlessly from the snapshots from the four cameras, I find it a little abstract when it comes to very tight spaces with tall vertical objects, for example, a portico where there are walls, pillars, etc. The distance between obstacles and the car's simulation is not that accurate or this may be because this reconstruction lacks enough resolution to resolve distances accurately. Because of this, objects that you may see to be hitting the car in the 360-degree rendered image, may be clearing the car by several inches. 360-degree image can be a good reference in open space parking etc. where you can see parking guidelines etc. accurately. The installer also mentioned that it will take some time to get used to this 360-degree view and how this relates to object clearances.

For tight parking situations, I feel that the 360-degree image can be used for a rough positioning of the car and then the real-time view from the side cameras, and the front camera with parking sensor information superimposed can be used to accurately judge the clearance.

What I like the most is the reverse camera with the dynamic guidelines. This can be very helpful in locating obstacles in the rear and avoiding them from a distance. This is far superior to the original camera with fixed guidelines.

The system also has a USB port to which a thumb drive may be connected, and the system can record video footage from all four cameras. However, I have not tried this feature as I feel the cameras lack the resolution to function as a dashcam to recognize the registration numbers of other vehicles recorded in the video. It is better to use dedicated high-resolution dashcams for this.

When the right or left turn indicators are switched on, the display shows the video feed from the respective front camera, and also a 3D view of the car. This video comes on when the indicator is turned on and the vehicle speed drops below 30kph (the threshold can be configured in the settings menu). However, I feel this is more of a distraction than being useful. I may disable this from the settings menu.

Operation:

The display automatically switches to the 360 camera system under several triggers.

• When turn indicators are switched on
• When door is opened
• When reverse gear is engaged
• When the car is stopped, if the front or rear parking sensors are triggered

Apart from the above triggers, the display can be turned on manually by pressing the center button of the remote controller. The remote controller has a rotary encoder with a center button. The rotary encoder can be used to switch between various views and also enter the settings menu.

The below picture shows the remote control. This looks tacky and feels cheap. But it gets the job done.


Some Use Cases:

Let me show some of the use cases and how the system performs under these situations. Please excuse the angle of the photographs of the screen. I had to shoot the screen from an angle below the screen to avoid reflections.

Accuracy of the reverse camera guidelines:

The below picture shows the reverse guidelines on the display and the line just touches the pillar of the gate.


When I back up the car crossing the pillar, this is the clearance between the car and the pillar - about 4 to 5 inches.


The below picture shows the reverse guideline as I approach another parked car. The video shows the distance of the car. However, this distance is not correct. The actual distance is less than half of what is being displayed. The guidelines are accurate though. In this picture the guideline just clears the car parked in the rear.


This is the clearance when I cross the parked car - about 6 inches.


Use of real-time front camera feed - Scenario 1:

In the below picture, I am approaching a motorcycle parked on the side of the road, and the car is very close to the motorcycle.


This is the real-time view of both the front cameras. On the right side, the clearance between the car and the motorcycle is very clearly visible.


This is the realtime view from the front right camera. This comes up when right turn indicator is turned on. Notice how the left part of the image has switched to a 3D view of the car, in which the motorcycle is distorted. This 3D view is totally useless when turn indicators are switched on.


Use of real-time front camera feed - Scenario 2:

In the below picture, I am approaching a car parked on the left and I have to pass this car very closely.


Bird's eye 360-degree view of the front side to judge the distance.


Bird's eye 360-degree view of the full car.


Dual front cameras reconstructed view.


Real-time front-camera view.


Parking in the Portico:

The below picture shows the view of the gate as I am about to park the car in the portico.


The 360-degree view of the front side shows how much the gate overlaps with the steering angle.


After reversing the car a little and entering back.


Real-time front camera view showing the clearance between the gate and the front right of the car.


Front view after entering the portico.


The two yellow rectangles show the signal from the parking sensors.


The clearance of the front of the car at this instance - is about 6 to 8 inches.


Low Light Performance:

The below picture shows the 3D render of the portico at night with some lights turned on. The image is quite good. I have not tested the system in total darkness.



Settings:

The configuration and settings menus also can be accessed using the remote control. However, in some of the configuration pages where up/down and right/left controls are needed, the rotary remote control cannot be used. For these pages, the IR remote control will have to be used. Below are some pictures of some of the settings pages.

Main menu page. This provides settings like enabling/disabling turn indicator triggers, speed at which these triggers are applied, guidelines enable/disable, radar (parking sensors) enable/disable etc. These are general settings and are safe to change.


Settings menu page. This provides settings like car model and color, guidelines setup and calibration, camera gain calibration etc. This is more advanced settings and one has to be very careful not to mess these settings.


The camera gains settings page. This is one of the pages where up/down and right/left controls are required to adjust various exposure settings and cannot be done with the rotary encoder.


The guidelines calibration page.


There is also an AI configurations page. From the various parameters, it looks like there is an AI model that can detect objects like cars and humans and provide audible notifications. Will explore these more in the future and update the thread if I find something useful.


Conclusion:

I feel the Modiber 360-degree camera system is a worthy upgrade to the Toyota Fortuner. I have tried to document all the technical details of installation, possible issues (like wrong mats used for calibration, guidelines not calibrated, etc.), solutions, important features, etc. I have not covered some features like video recording, the performance of the cameras in the dark, etc. Will update the thread when I get a chance to test these.

Though there were some hiccups during installation, full credit to the Toyota dealership for resolving the issues satisfactorily.

Hope this thread is useful to existing and future Fortuner owners who are considering the installation of the 360-degree camera.

That's all folks, I have for now. Let me know if you have any questions. Will do my best to answer them.

[graaja]

Moving thread out of Assembly Line.

[megazoid]

Good help to have especially with spaces becoming tight and objects getting closer and closer by the day. Wouldnt have guessed that it involved so much work setting this up. I presume you will also need a little time calibrating the actual clearances with respect to what is seen.

[sud]

I am also looking to add one soon. Thanks for this post as it helps to understand the product better. In Bangalore, when I checked with the showroom they were offering Moco 360 and they were quoting price higher then the direct procurement.

[vredesbyrd]

The setup looks great despite the camera quality. This will make navigating easier, especially during off road activities and hill driving.

I have been looking for a similar kit for the Scorpio-N but to no avail. Most setups will require swapping out the head unit, which I am not okay with.

In hindsight, should have saved a little more and gotten a Fortuner.

[padmrajravi]

I have had the same system installed on my 2021 Fortuner for a year or so. In my experience, the 360-degree view provided by the system is useless. In the 360-degree view, the margins around the car where the camera can not see are too high. So it does not help much to get out of tight parking situations. The front camera view alone is useful at times for me when I am getting out of houses with tight walls on both sides. It helps me inch just the nose forward and get a full view of both sides of the road while getting out.

[mack.mehul]

Originally Posted by graaja

My Thoughts About the 360 Degree Camera System:

The fit & finish of this 360 degree camera looks quite good & it looks like almost stock system. I find the camera quality also very nice from the pictures though the image could have been a bit more sharper. This is the only feature apart from sunroof which the T Fort was lacking and its a welcome step by toyota to offer some of the features at dealership level although T Fort is now a very expensive car vis a vis the features it gets.

[ferrarirules]

Thanks for sharing this. Good that it syncs with the existing HU. Going through your installation, there were a few things that came to my mind

1. Routing wire from the front bumper to the firewall inlet is a scary thing as there are a lot of moving parts that this wire can entangle into if not secured properly.
2. Why is this a dealer level accessory? A top model Fortuner cost 38.5 lakhs ex showroom. Cars half its price come with this feature as standard in top model. Isn't Toyota taking its customers for granted?

[Cool-Shine]

Originally Posted by vredesbyrd

The setup looks great despite the camera quality. This will make navigating easier, especially during off road activities and hill driving.

I have been looking for a similar kit for the Scorpio-N but to no avail. Most setups will require swapping out the head unit, which I am not okay with.

In hindsight, should have saved a little more and gotten a Fortuner.

I know someone who has installed the 360 degree camera in Scorpio N. You can refer to the below video for more details.

https://youtu.be/VzjYVXPnB5U?si=WAJmvVNcaQ_wsuyQ

[SaiSW]

The fact that a customer has to install something like a 360 degree camera system (which a 10 lac rs Baleno has from factory) on his own volition in their close to 60 lac rs car should bring shame to Toyota India.

And that too, it looks like the 360 degree function is pretty average, whether that is due to the quality of the system or the below par stock infotainment system I'm not sure.

[audioholic]

Looks very good and thanks for the detailed explanation. I have come across many 360 degree camera videos on social media where the calibration is totally rubbish, and the final image wont even make sense. But in your case, the repeat work has really solved the issue and the stitched image looks very good.

I wonder if there is one made specific to the Crysta. If so I will consider getting a set. My only grouse is that IR remote which otherwise if had integrated with the touch screen it would be the best upgrade.