Optical camouflage

Anvesh Pillalamarri,
III/IV Btech ECE,JBIET.
[email protected]
9948622811
Ramakrishna.Ch,
III/IV B’Tech ECE,MRCET.
[email protected]
9030502022

ABSTRACT-
On one hand, there's the optical camouflage technology developed
While new high-performance, light-transmitting materials such as by scientists at the University of Tokyo. This approach works on the
aerogel and light-transmitting concrete compel us to question the same principles of the blue screen used by TVweather forecasters
nature of solidity, a new technology developed by University of and Hollywood filmmakers. If you want people to see through you,
Tokyo seeks to make matter disappear altogether. Scientists at Tachi then why not just film what's behind you and project it onto your
Laboratory have developed Optical Camouflage, which utilizes a body? Granted, it hardly matches up to the personal cloaking
collection of devices working in concert to render a subject devices found in the likes of "Metal Gear Solid" video game series,
invisible. Although more encumbering and complicated than Harry but it produces similar (though more limited) results.
Potter’s invisibility cloak, this system has essentially the same goal, In this article, we'll explore both invisibility technologies, the
rendering invisibility by slipping beneath the shining, silvery cloth. science behind them and their possible applications outside of
Optical Camouflage requires the use of clothing – in this case, a magical quests and sci-fi infiltration missions.
hooded jacket – made with a retro-reflective material, which is
comprised by thousands of small beads that reflect light precisely I.INTRODUCTION
according to the
Invisibility has been on humanity's wish list at least since Amon-Ra,
angle of incidence. A digital video camera placed behind the person a deity who could disappear and reappear at will, joined the
wearing the cloak captures the scene that the individual would Egyptian pantheon in 2008 BC. With
otherwise obstruct, and sends data to a computer for processing. A
sophisticated program calculates the appropriate distance and recent advances in optics and computing and with the advent of
viewing angle, and then transmits scene via projector using a flexible electronics such as a flexible liquid crystal display, that
combiner, or a half silvered mirror with an optical hole, which would allow the background image to be displayed on the material
allows a witness to perceive a realistic merger of thevprojected itself, however, this elusive goal is no longer purely imaginary.In
scene with the background – thus rendering the cloak- earer 2003, three professors at University of Tokyo — Susumu Tachi,
invisible. Masahiko Inami and Naoki Kawakami — created a prototypical
camouflage system in which a video camera takes a shot of the
from two different invisibility technologies. background and displays it on the cloth using an external projector.
They can even reflect images when the material is wrinkled. The
same year Time magazine named it the coolest invention of 2003. It
is an interesting application of optical camouflage and is called the
Invisibility Cloak. Through the clever application of

some dirt-cheap technology, the Japanese inventor has brought

personal invisibility a step closer to reality.

Their prototype uses an external camera placed behind the cloaked

object to record a scene, which it then transmits to a computer for
image processing. The key development of the cloak, however, was
the development of a new material called retroreflectum. Professor
Tachi says that this material allows you to see a three-dimensional

image. The computer feeds the image into an external projector

which projects the image onto a person wearing a special retro
reflective coat. This can lead to different results depending on the
quality of the camera, the projector, and the coat, but by the late
nineties, convincing illusions were created. That was only one
invention created in this field and researches are still being carried
out in order to implement it using nanotechnology.
 reality merely tries to supplement it with additional, helpful content.
Think of it as a heads-up display (HUD) for everyday life.

Most augmented-reality systems require a user to look through a

II.Optical Camouflage: Altered Reality special viewing apparatus to see a real-world scene enhanced with
synthesized graphics. They also call for a powerful computer.
Optical camouflage requires these things as well, but it also
necessitates several other components. Here's everything needed to
make a person appear invisible:

1. a garment made from highly reflective material

2. a digital video camera

3. a computer

4. a projector

5. a special, half-silvered mirror called a combiner

On the next page, we'll look at each of these components in greater
detail.

III.Optical Camouflage: Invisibility Cloak Components

All right, so you have your video camera, computer, projector,

combiner and wondrous reflective raincoat. Just how does
Optical camouflage technology won't make you invisible to augmented reality technology turn this odd shopping list into a
multi-eyed Beholder monsters -- or even to stray cats and recipe for invisibility?
squirrels.

Optical camouflage delivers a similar experience to Harry Potter's

invisibility cloak, but using it requires a slightly complicated
arrangement. First, the person who wants to be invisible (let's call
him Harry) dons a garment that resembles a hooded raincoat. The
garment is made of a special material that we'll examine more
closely in a moment.

Next, an observer (let's call him Professor Snape) stands before

Harry at a specific location. At that location, instead of seeing Harry
wearing a hooded raincoat, Snape sees right through the cloak,
making Harry appear to be invisible. The above photograph shows
you what Snape would see. And if Snape stepped to the side and
viewed Harry from a slightly different location? Why, he'd simply
see the boy wizard wearing a silver garment. Scowls and detentions
would likely follow. Lucky for Harry, his fictional cloak affords
360-degree protection. 

Optical camouflage doesn't work by way of magic. It works by

taking advantage of something called augmented-reality Light Surface Reflectivity
technology -- a type of technology first pioneered in the 1960s by
Ivan Sutherland and his students at Harvard University and the First, let's take a closer look at the raincoat: It's made from retro-
University of Utah. You can read more about augmented reality reflective material. This high-tech fabric is covered with thousands
in How Augmented Reality Works, but a quick recap will be helpful and thousands of small beads. When light strikes one of these beads,
here. the light rays bounce back exactly in the same direction from which
they came.
Augmented-reality systems add computer-generated information to
a user's sensory perceptions. Imagine, for example, that you're To understand why this is unique, look at how light reflects off other
walking down a city street. As you gaze at sites along the way, types of surfaces. A rough surface creates a diffused reflection
additional information appears to enhance and enrich your normal because the incident (incoming) light rays scatters in many different
view. Perhaps it's the day's specials at a restaurant or the showtimes directions. A perfectly smooth surface, like that of a mirror, creates
at a theater or the bus schedule at the station. What's critical to what is known as aspecular reflection -- a reflection in which
understand is that augmented reality is not the same as virtual incident light rays and reflected light rays form the exact same angle
reality. While virtual reality aims to replace the world, augmented with the mirror surface.
In retro-reflection, the glass beads act like prisms, bending the light augmented reality.On the next page, we'll look at how this whole
rays by a process known asrefraction. This causes the reflected system comes together.
light rays to travel back along the same path as the incident light V.Optical Camouflage: The Complete Invisibility System
rays. The result: An observer situated at the light source receives
more of the reflected light and therefore sees a brighter reflection. Now let's put all of these components together to see how the
invisibility cloak appears to make a person transparent. The diagram
Retro-reflective materials are actually quite common. Traffic signs, below shows the typical arrangement of all the various devices and
road markers and bicycle reflectors all take advantage of retro- pieces of equipment.Once a person puts on the cloak made with the
reflection to be more visible to people driving at night. The movie retro-reflective material, here's the sequence of events:
screens found in most modern commercial theaters also take
advantage of this material because it allows for high brilliance under 1. A digital video camera captures the scene behind the
dark conditions. In optical camouflage, the use of retro-reflective person wearing the cloak.
material is critical because it can be seen from far away and outside
in bright sunlight -- two requirements for the illusion of invisibility. 2. The computer processes the captured image and makes
the calculations necessary to adjust the still image or
IV.Optical Camouflage: More Invisibility Cloak Components video so it will look realistic when it is projected.

3. The projector receives the enhanced image from the

computer and shines the image through a pinhole-sized
opening onto the combiner.

4. The silvered half of the mirror, which is completely

reflective, bounces the projected image toward the
person wearing the cloak.

5. The cloak acts like a movie screen,

reflecting light directly back to the source, which in this
case is the mirror.

6. Light rays bouncing off the cloak pass through the

transparent part of the mirror and fall on the user's eyes.
Remember that the light rays bouncing off the cloak
As you can see in this image, the experience closely resembles contain the image of the scene that exists behind the
walking directly in front of a movie projection screen, only with person wearing the cloak.
a real background.

For the rest of the setup, the video camera needs to be positioned
behind the subject to capture the background. The computer takes
the captured image from the video camera, calculates the
appropriate perspective and transforms the captured image into the
picture that will be projected onto the retro-reflective material.

The projector then shines the modified image on the garment, by

shining a lightbeam through an opening controlled by a device
called an iris diaphragm. This diaphragm is made of thin, opaque
plates, and turning a ring changes the diameter of the central
opening. For optical camouflage to work properly, this opening must
be the size of a pinhole. Why? This ensures a larger depth of field so
that the screen (in this case the cloak) can be located any distance
from the projector.

Finally, the overall system requires a special mirror to both reflect

the projected image toward the cloak and to let light rays bouncing
off the cloak return to the user's eye. This special mirror is called a
beam splitter, or a combiner -- a half-silvered mirror that both
reflects light (the silvered half) and transmits light (the transparent Invisibility Cloak System
half).
The person wearing the cloak appears invisible because the
If properly positioned in front of the user's eye, the combiner allows background scene is being displayed onto the retro-reflective
the user to perceive both the image enhanced by the computer and material. At the same time, light rays from the rest of the world are
light from the surrounding world. This is critical because the allowed to reach the user's eye, making it seem as if an invisible
computer-generated image and the real-world scene must be person exists in an otherwise normal-looking world.
integrated fully for the illusion of invisibility to seem realistic. The
user has to look through a peephole in this mirror to see the
VI.Optical Camouflage: Real-world Invisibility Applications

The words "invisibility cloak" tends to summon images of fantastic

adventure, magical espionage and otherworldly deception. The
actual applications for optical camouflage, however, are far less out
there. You can forget hiding your Romulan starship or hanging out
in the lady wizards' dormitory, but that doesn't mean there aren't a
number of viable uses for the technology.For instance, pilots landing
a plane could use this technology to make cockpit floors transparent.
This would enable them to see the runway and the landing gear
simply by glancing down at the floor (which would display the view
from the outside of the fuselage) Similarly, drivers wouldn't have to
deal with mirrors and blind spots. Instead, they could just "look
through" the entire rear of the vehicle. The technology even boasts
potential applications in the medical field, as surgeons could use
optical camouflage to see through their hands and instruments for an
unobstructed view of the underlying tissue.

Interestingly enough, one possible application of this technology

actually revolves around making objects more visible. The concept
is called mutual telexistence and essentially involves projecting a
remote user's appearance onto arobot coated in retro-reflective
material. Say a surgeon were operating on a patient via remote
control robotic surgery. Mutual telexistence would provide the
human doctors assisting the procedure with the perception that
they're working with another human instead of a machine. Right
now, mutual telexistence is science fiction, but scientists continue to
push the boundaries of the technology. For example, pervasive
gaming is already becoming a reality. Pervasive gaming extends
gaming experiences out into the real world, whether on city streets
or in remote wilderness. Players with mobile displays move through
the world while sensors capture information about their
environment, including their location.

Mutual Telexistence

This information delivers a gaming experience that changes

according to where users are and what they are doing.

Optical camouflage is just one method of creating the sensation of

invisibility. On the next few pages, we'll explore the latest
breakthroughs in the science of disappearing.

VII. Metamaterials: Bending Light Waves

A meteorologist makes the mistake of wearing a blue outfit to work

one day. When he walks in front of theblue screen to film
the weather report, his arms and torso appear to have vanished,
leaving only a floating pair of hands and a disembodied head. This
scenario, which you might recognize from the 1993 comedy
"Groundhog Day," is optical camouflage in a nutshell.

Metamaterials offer a more compelling vision of invisibility

technology, without the need for multiple projectors and cameras.
First conceptualized by Russian physicist Victor Veselago in 1967,
these tiny, artificial structures are smaller than the wavelength
of light (they have to be to divert them) and exhibit negative
electromagnetic properties that affect how an object interacts with spitball, move it around the wearer and allow it to continue on the
electromagnetic fields. other side as if its trajectory had taken it, unopposed, straight
through the person in the cloak. Now how much more of a stretch
The Smallest Frontier would it be to divert a rock? A bullet?

Metamaterials, a creation of science, don't occur Smith's metamaterials proved the method. The recipe to invisibility
naturally. In order to create the minute structures lay in adapting it to different waves
required to redirect electromagnetic waves, scientists
employ nanotechnology. Read How Nanotechnology
Works to learn all about the world's smallest VIII.Metamaterials: Hiding Tanks, Not Boy Wizards
machines.
Take a good look at an object on your desk -- say the
unwashed coffee cup or that canister of Red Bull you're nursing.
Remember, images reach us via light waves. Sounds reaches us via Seriously, why all the caffeine? As you stare at this object, ponder
sound waves. If you can channel these waves around an object, you this: You've never actually seen this object before and you're not
can effectively hide it from view or sound. Imagine a small stream. really seeing it now. You're actually seeing light -- that's all
If you stick a teabag full of red dye into the flowing water, its our eyescan sense.
presence would be apparent downstream, thanks to the way it altered

the
water's hue, taste and smell. But what if you could divert the water This optical image shows the University of Maryland
around the teabag? metamaterials in action, steering light waves away from the
central circle. The arrows indicate the direction of the light
In 2006, Duke University's David Smith took an earlier theory posed waves.
by English theoretical physicist John Pendry and used it to create a
metamaterial capable of distorting the flow of microwaves. Smith's Your eyes are processing the light leaving that shiny silver canister,
metamaterial fabric consisted of concentric rings containing light originating from a lamp or the world outside a nearby window.
electronic microwave distorters. When activated, these steer If we could somehow keep the light from intercepting the object in
frequency-specific microwaves around the central portion of the question, you wouldn't be able to see it.
material.
In 2007, the University of Maryland's Igor Smolyaninov led his
team even farther down the road to invisibility. Incorporating earlier
theories proposed by Purdue University's Vladimir Shaleav,
Smolyaninov constructed a metamaterial capable of bending visible
light around an object.

A mere 10 micrometers wide, the Purdue cloak uses concentric gold

rings injected with polarized cyan light. These rings steer incoming
light waves away from the hidden object, effectively making it
invisible. Chinese physicists at Wuhan University have taken this
concept into the audible range, proposing the creation of an acoustic
invisibility cloak capable of diverting sound waves around an object.

Cloaking technology can achieve invisibility by bending light

waves around an object

Obviously humans don't see in the microwave spectrum, but the

technology demonstrated that energy waves could be routed around
an object. Imagine a cloak that can divert a third grader's straw-fired
 Fig .The present system of invisibility

For the time being, metamaterial invisibility cloaks are somewhat In Susumu Tachi's cloaking system, a camera behind the wearer
limited. They're not only small; they're limited to two dimensions -- feeds background images through a computer to a projector, which
hardly what you'd need to vanish into the scenery of a 3-D war zone. paints them on a jacket as though it were a movie screen. The
Plus, the resulting cloak would weigh more than even a full-grown wearer appears mysteriously translucent as long as observers are
wizard could hope to lug around. As a result, the technology might facing the projection head-on and the background The cameras will
be better suited to applications such as hiding stationary buildings or transmit images to a dense array of display elements, each capable
vehicles, such as a tank. of aiming thousands of light beams on their own individual
trajectories. These elements project a virtual scene derived from the
IX.DRAWBACKS cameras' views, making it possible to synthesize various
perspectives.
• Large amount of external hardware required
…And Tomorrow
– For the invisibility cloak to work properly, we need a number
of components such as a video camera (which sits behind the In Susumu Tachi's cloaking system, a camera behind the wearer
person wearing the cloak and captures the background image.), feeds background images through a computer to
a computer (which takes the captured image from the video
camera, calculate the appropriate perspective to simulate reality a projector, which paints them on a jacket as though it were a movie
and transform the captured image into the image that will be screen. The wearer appears mysteriously translucent as long as
projected onto the retro-reflective material), a projector (which observers are facing the projection head-on and the background isn't
takes the modified image produced by the computer and shines too bright.
it onto the garment, which acts like a movie screen), an iris
diaphragm (The projector sends the light through the iris
diaphragm, which is actually a small opening), a combiner (a
special mirror to both reflect the projected image toward the
cloak and to let light rays bouncing off the cloak return to the
user's eye), and most importantly a retro reflective cloak (which
has special reflecting properties) to cover the object which
needs to be made invisible.

• The illusion is only convincing when viewed from a certain angle

- The Invisibility cloak that we have in hand at present appears

to be invisible only from one point of view. But a real
invisibility cloak, if it's going to dupe anyone who might see it,
needs to represent the scene behind its wearer accurately from Fig. The future of invisibility
any angle.Moreover, since any number of people might be
looking through it at any given moment,it has to reproduce the
background from all angles at once. That is, it has to project a
separate image of its surroundings for every possible
perspective.
To achieve true invisibility,optical camouflage must capture the
background from all angles and display it from all perspectives
simultaneously. This requires a minimum of six stereoscopic camera
X.CONCLUSION pairs, allowing the computer to model the surroundings and
synthesize the scene from every point of view. To display this
Invisibility Today... imagery, the fabric is covered with hyper pixels, each consisting of a
180 x 180 LED array behind a hemispherical lens.
isn't too bright.
More Great Links
  Augmented Reality Page - Jim Vallino, Department of  Smolyaninov, Igor et al. "Electromagnetic cloaking in
Software Engineering, Rochester Institute of the visible frequency range." University of Maryland
Technology Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Dec. 10, 2007. (Oct. 13, 2009) 
 Tachi Laboratory at the University of Tokyo http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0709/0709.2862.pdf

 Electromagnetic cloaking in the visible frequency range  Tachi, Susumu. "Telexistence and Retro-reflective
(PDF) Projection Technology (RPT)," Proceedings of the 5th
Virtual Reality International Conference (VRIC2003),
pp. 69/1-69/9.
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http://projects.star.t.u-
tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/oc.html
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ultrasound scans." New Scientist. January 2008. (Oct.
13, 2009)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13156-acoustic-
superlens-could-mean-finer-ultrasound-scans.html

 Barras, Colin. "Gold rings create first true invisibility

cloak." Oct. 2. 2007. (Oct. 13, 2009)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12722-gold-
rings-create-first-true-invisibility-cloak.html

 BBC News. "Inventor plans 'invisible walls'." BBC

News. June 14, 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3791795.stm

 Bland, Eric. "Invisibility Cloak Closer Than Ever to

Reality." Discovery News. Jan. 15, 2009. (Oct. 13,
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cloak.html

 Feiner, Steven K. "Augmented reality: A new way of

seeing," Scientific American. April 2002.

 Inami, Masahiko et al. "Visuo-Haptic Display Using

Head-Mounted Projector."
http://projects.star.t.u-
tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/oc.html

 Inami, Masahiko et al. "Optical Camouflage Using

Retro-reflective Projection Technology," Proceedings of
the Second IEEE and ACM International Symposium on
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 "'Invisibility Cloaks' Could Break Sound Barriers."

Duke Engineering. Jan. 9, 2008. (Oct. 13, 2009)
http://www.pratt.duke.edu/news/?id=1193

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