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Optical Camouflage
Mike Siekkinen writes "This optical camouflage project is pretty interesting. It contains three videos demonstrating it in action. Basically they overlay a video projection of what the background behind the object to be camouflaged looks like. So if you were standing in front of a book shelf an image of the portion of the bookshelf you are blocking would be projected on to you. The results are probably better than you would expect."
And it requires a projector to paint the image.
So it won't work in a misty or foggy scenario like a jungle or in winter.
It might work in the desert, but so does netting.
Back to the drawing board!
The results are *definitely* better than I would expect. James Bond, anyone?
seriouslyexcited.net
That coat looks exactly like the thermoptics thing that hacker was wearing in Ghost in the Shell.
The video is very cool. It obviously has limited applications, since all the system does is project an image of the background onto an object in the foreground. The illusion is convincing.
What good applications are there, actually? Can anybody think of any? It could only work in a controlled environment, that is the biggest drawback.
Oh yeah, of course the dead giveaway that this system is in use would be the projector. 1000 watt point light source anybody?
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
You camouflage projector!
First SovRus post for Mother Russia. Suck this, capitalist pigs!
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
You could use this technique to create some VERY interesting and realistic theater effects. You could pretty much make any arbitrary object appear or disappear at will, up on the stage, and it would look a hell of a lot more convincing that using sharkscrim.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
So if you were standing in front of a book shelf an image of the portion of the bookshelf you are blocking would be projected on to you.
Hey, sounds like the US Military could use this stuff when they are busy killing Iraqi school children!
Since we all don't speak the native languages of English or Japanesse, here are the translated versiosn from....
English to Japanesse
and...
Japanesse to English
We can't let those scientists have the fun of putting up bilingual pages up. After all, what's science without bad translations, eh?
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
A number of posters on those site feel it's no big deal, a guy holding things in front of a projector... That's what I thought at first. But what I can't figure out is why doesn't the image show on the guys hands and face. You'd think at least some light would be reflected off of his hands.
Now we just need to get the enemy to aim these giant projectors at us!
"And like that
Don't they have movies in Japan? Geez.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Man, I was hoping they were finally going to have the neat wearable active camouflage. While this is interesting as well, its way too limited to be used for anything I can think of.
When are we going to see the day when adolescent males can buy a camouflage suit to sneak into the girls locker room?
Not only have the editors forgotten that this has already been on Slashdot, apparently, the wonderful community hasn't noticed yet either.
Publications
M. Shiro, Ghost in the Shell, Kodansya, 1991
M. Inami, N. Kawakami, D. Sekiguchi, Y. Yanagida, T. Maeda and S. Tachi, Visuo-Haptic Display Using Head-Mounted Projector, Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality 2000, pp.233-240, 2000(vr2000.pdf(350k))
M. Inami, N. Kawakami, Y. Yanagida, T. Maeda and S. Tachi, Method and Device for Providing Information, US PAT. 6,341,869 , 2002
I'm not sure if that means that Ghost In the Shell was the inspiration or an actual source or what... but clearly the connection is not accidental.
gg, try to look at the whole page next time.
I will admit that this works better than I expected from the video clips. But I think it's barely halfway towards the goal of personal optical camouflage. From what they describe, it requires an external display source, and applies a bluescreen style approach.
What they need to do is figure out a way to create a piece of clothing which *is* the display, and not merely a reflector or a bluescreen like what they have now. Maybe take this foldable display technology I've read about (mainly geared towards disposable displays), and attach it to fabric. Then make a uniform out of it. Then, you can determine the image behind the person and display it on the uniform.
They're already halfway there, since they can determine what's behind the person and display it on a special colored material. Now all they need is a fabric that can display images, and then they can transmit the background onto the uniform.
Then we're talking about optical camouflage.
sigh, gg me. Its actually a DIFFERENT crackpot attempt to make an invisibility cloak, my bad. In fact, kudos to the submitter for using the term "optical camoulage" instead of "cloak of invisibility."
I expect it to work as well as it did in James Bond.
Instead of using projectors though, Q explained that the car was made up of a material that acted like a screen. I guess like a plasma screen, or even that new electronic paper, it may not be that far off.
It would be much better than a projector...hmmm...
Moreover, to project a stereoscopic image, the observer looks at the masking object more transparent.
While the grammar is somewhat ambiguous, I believe that what they're saying is that they attempt to project a stereoscopic image of the background onto the observer's eyes. However, it brings up the possibility of using a two-camera analysis of the scene to figure out where the silver coat is.
Two giant problems jump right out at me.
One: depth perception. Because we're watching movies of the demonstration instead of seeing it in person, it looks fairly good. But if you saw this technique in person, with binocular vision, you would be able to tell without any difficulty what you were seeing. If the background is sufficiently cluttered-- like a jungle backdrop-- and if the camouflaged thing is stationary, it might be good enough to fool a passing glance. But then again, so is your average ghilie suit.
Two: parallax. (This has been mentioned upthread already.) The demonstrations are all shot with a stationary camera. If the camera were to move, the illusion would be ruined. I'd imagine from looking at the illustrations that the geometry of the projector, reflector, mirror, and observer are all pretty critical. If the observer takes a step in any direction, the illusion will be broken.
All in all, I can't see how this could ever be practical. The most important flaw is that it's not even remotely adaptive. You have to have a perfect still photograph of your background to project against the mirror. If a bird flies behind the camouflaged object or person, the game is up.
Neat trick, but not very impressive.
I write in my journal
Since this scheme is only good for hiding from one watcher at a time, and only from a one-eyed watcher when close, it seems that a simpler method will work.
Hold a rear-projection screen in front of you as a shield. It will have a pole coming toward you, that is long enough so the end of it is behind you when you hold the shield. On this end is a camera looking at the scene behind you.
Now it works without half-silvered mirrors, it is portable (you carry it around), and it works even if the background is moving.
Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
Yeah, after reading the post, the results were worse than I expected. Oh well.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Trollish posting history?? I have positive karma and only ONE comment of mine has ever been modded to -1. Just because I don't just into a discussion fast enough to get modded often doesn't mean I'm a "sociopathic wacko." This thread, for example, will never see the light of another mod point.
Well you see, the trick they used in the James Bond movies was that /there was actually no car there/. It's generally a lot easier add an invisible car than to remove a visible one.
Yeah yeah, I'm being mildly sarcastic here. My point being that if you actually made the "Vanish" IRL the result would be more similar to what this guy has than to the the digitally processed movie.
yes this new technology is cool, but i seems somewhat worthless.