Real Optical Camouflage

[THYREN]

Hi all,

I think I posted this site about Real Optical Camouflage in this forum, but not since all the crashes.

Go and have a look (especially at the videos), it's pretty impressive (even if it's kind of useless) :

http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/pr ... xv/oc.html


If you like that kind of stuff, then look at this site:

http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/index.php

Enjoy!

[Lightice]

I think that's been posted here, before, though that was before the board went down. It isn't really anything special. Mirroring surface and projected "camouflage". A nifty trick, but useless on a battlefield.

[Black Mamba]

Although useless now, its another step towards the optical camouflage they use in GitS. I find it pretty neat.

[Hideo Kuze]

I have heard of a idea they used for aircraft, I can't remember what exactly it does, but it renders the aircraft transparent, they used some kind of searchlight of something that is mounted on the aircraft, I remember reading it somewhere in Popular Science I believe, but it was a technology that is starting to show some promise creating the siad aircraft transparent.

Also there is some talk about using electromagnetic fields to also create a type of active camouflage, but they are saying they are still a couple of years away from a working model to my knowledge.

Anyways, I thought that might some interesting information.

[THYREN]

I have heard of a idea they used for aircraft, I can't remember what exactly it does, but it renders the aircraft transparent, they used some kind of searchlight of something that is mounted on the aircraft, I remember reading it somewhere in Popular Science I believe, but it was a technology that is starting to show some promise creating the siad aircraft transparent.

Well, technically, aircrafts are already kind of invisible, because they can't be easily detected by radars (and that's the most important, as dogfights are history).

Anyway, I guess it could be possible to make them almost invisible just by covering them with some mirrors

Also there is some talk about using electromagnetic fields to also create a type of active camouflage, but they are saying they are still a couple of years away from a working model to my knowledge.

I'm not a specialist, but I'm wondering how electromagnetic field can modify light

Anyways, I thought that might some interesting information.

It's always interesting, and welcome on this forum

[Motoko2030]

The only way I can think of how they can use electromagnetic fields to modify the light waves if they can use it to bend the light waves around the aircraft making it invisible to the human eye. This is how a cloaking device in Star Trek works.

Welcome Hideo Kuze to the forums, any information that you have is always interesting.

[Lightice]

Although useless now, its another step towards the optical camouflage they use in GitS.

Unless you can bring cameras and projector to the battlefield and expect the enemy attack only from one direction, there isn't much field use for this product. It isn't much of a step towards any kind of camouflage. It might have some uses in concerts or stageplays, though, for making some cool effects.

The only way I can think of how they can use electromagnetic fields to modify the light waves if they can use it to bend the light waves around the aircraft making it invisible to the human eye. This is how a cloaking device in Star Trek works.

There is a critical problem with this concept: anything inside the cloacking field must also become blind to everything outside it. When the light bends around you, then you can't see anything, either, because of the said lack of light.
Ofcourse bending light in this controlled manner is a quite fantastic proposal in itself. Propably not entirely impossible, but certainly beyond any modern science.

[THYREN]

There is a critical problem with this concept: anything inside the cloacking field must also become blind to everything outside it. When the light bends around you, then you can't see anything, either, because of the said lack of light.
Ofcourse bending light in this controlled manner is a quite fantastic proposal in itself. Propably not entirely impossible, but certainly beyond any modern science.

Interesting! I guess it's like being inside a black hole (I'm just taking in consideration the light parameter) but it would create such a powerful field that it would be hard to confine it to just around the airplane...

Instead, it would be perhaps easier to create airplanes made of materials that are transparent like glass or plastic, don't you think? It sounds more realistic to me...

[Lightice]

Interesting! I guess it's like being inside a black hole (I'm just taking in consideration the light parameter)

How about just "in a dark closet"? You really don't have to travel all the way to a black hole to find darkness, even for the dramatic effect.

Instead, it would be perhaps easier to create airplanes made of materials that are transparent like glass or plastic, don't you think? It sounds more realistic to me...

Unfortunately some neccesary materials are inheritly nontransparent, although the new transparent aluminum might solve the problem of what to make the hull out of. In any case, the pilot will never be transparent and it might be troublesome for him to try to read invisible displays. In any case, the best solution would propably be a some sort of chameleon mechanism that'd let the suit or machine mimic the general colours and shapes of the background.

[james_sb]

Well, with planes they've done that quite effectivly already with just blue paint on the base and green fields on the top. Other things to consider are trails, and radar, heat seeking and well other things...

[Jeff Georgeson]

... although the new transparent aluminum might solve the problem of what to make the hull out of.

I read that and thought ... Star Trek!!! Scotty in Star Trek IV selling the formula for transparent aluminum to a corporation in return for the glass for the whale tanks ... and then I thought, but whales aren't extinct yet, no need to put them in the cramped quarters of a Klingon ship, and ANYWAY STAR TREK IS FICTION!!!

But apparently another piece of science fiction is becoming science fact.

There are not one but two substances now available that could be considered transparent aluminum: transparent alumina, which is a transparent ceramic made of aluminum oxide; and nanophase aluminum, in which the aluminum particles are so small that light gets through (although this may be just a variant on the transparent alumina). Oh, wait, there may be another--aluminum oxynitride, to be used by the Air Force as transparent armor.

Links to these for anyone interested:
www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131
physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/8/9
www.rense.com/general20/transparentalum.htm--(has a better picture!
www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/0205/124_print.html

Jeff

[THYREN]

Instead, it would be perhaps easier to create airplanes made of materials that are transparent like glass or plastic, don't you think? It sounds more realistic to me...

Unfortunately some neccesary materials are inheritly nontransparent, although the new transparent aluminum might solve the problem of what to make the hull out of. In any case, the pilot will never be transparent and it might be troublesome for him to try to read invisible displays. In any case, the best solution would propably be a some sort of chameleon mechanism that'd let the suit or machine mimic the general colours and shapes of the background.

Well, I think that the pilot thing is not a problem, as the military airplanes will be soon remotely piloted from a safe place (ie: not inside the plane )

There are not one but two substances now available that could be considered transparent aluminum: transparent alumina, which is a transparent ceramic made of aluminum oxide; and nanophase aluminum, in which the aluminum particles are so small that light gets through (although this may be just a variant on the transparent alumina). Oh, wait, there may be another--aluminum oxynitride, to be used by the Air Force as transparent armor.

Links to these for anyone interested:
www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131
physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/8/9
www.rense.com/general20/transparentalum.htm--(has a better picture!
www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/0205/124_print.html

Jeff

Here we go ! Thx for those cool links (except the 1st one that doesn't work for me)

[Hideo Kuze]

I remember reading about a type of optical camouflage that could be regarded as a myth since there really is no solid proff taht it happened.

Has anyone heard of Project Rainbow?

Or more specifically the Philidelphia Experiment?

Well, supposedly they actually acheived optical camouflage with electromagnetic fields using the Unified Field Theory.

Of course it could be just another one of those accursed Urban Legends of a sort XD

[Spica]

Aluminum oxide is actually what forms sapphires, it is also what makes aluminum cans sturdy in that a thin layer of aluminum oxide forms on the surface of a can giving it a hard outer layer.

[Spica]

As for invisible planes, you just need to give a stealth plane a black paint job (which is what the military does). The stealth coating and design keep the plane from being detected by radar and, since most assult missions are flown at night, the black paint job keeps the plain from being spotted visually.