Collimated displays aim to mimic the real world, with distant objects appearing at near infininty. The benefits of collimation are recognized by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA), who mandate its use for certain levels of airline pilot training and qualification.

In a classic cross-cockpit collimated display system, the image is projected onto a spherical back projection screen from which it is reflected to the observer by a large-radius mirror. In a Midas WAC-Window display system, a spherical mirror is used to view the image at optical infinity on a Digital Projection Monitor (DPM^®).