Personal cloaking devices are real?

[Larry]

no, I'm talking about something much simpler. its just a flat object that basically contains several different pictures. depending on the angle, you'll see a different picture. they also have a texture to them, vertical lines running down them.

Ah, I think I know what you're talking about.

Take a clear piece of plastic. Print a pattern of vertical lines down it.

Behind it, you put a special picture. (The simplest simply have two images.)

The way you make the special picture is, you print a vertical column of the first column of pixels from image #1. Then you print the second column of image #2, then the third column of image #1, and the fourth column of #2.

Then place that clear piece of plastic with the vertical lines printed

on the front of it

, on top of the special image you've made.

Say the clear spot on the "mask" is directly over column #2 of the background image.

When you look straight at it, you see columns #2, 4, 6, and so forth. You see image #2.

When you tilt the page so that your left hand is further away than your right, then when you look through that clear patch that's over column #2, you see column #1. (And 3, 5, and so forth.) You see image #1.

Possible limitations:

Each "pixel" now consists of an opening, with several image generators behind it. (say they're LEDs.) Depending on where the observer is, he sees one of several different LEDs through the opening.

Your image processor now has to be good enough to refresh several image generators for each actual pixel on the suit.

If the suit has wrinkles, it could be a problem. Now, a part of the suit that thinks it's facing forward, is actually facing 15 degrees to the left.

The "cloak" has to be rather thick, so that the multiple LEDs can all shine through the same hole, in different directions.

This also means that the holes have to have some distance between them. (Think of the holes as the lens of your eye. The multiple image generators are like the retina on the back of your eyeball. Light comes out instead of going in. The retina has to be bigger than the pupil. If the retina is 1/4" across, then the pupils have to be 1/4" apart, or more.) And the holes are the only part of your cloak that actually generates the camouflage image. The space between the holes looks like . . .

Still, it's a neat idea.

Edit: What I wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak.

[Vicious]

Our knowledge of light is only going to get better.

[Corcaigh]

You can easily beat this kind of stealth technology by looking at it in different wavelengths at the same time.

[Larry]

You can easily beat this kind of stealth technology by looking at it in different wavelengths at the same time.

Uh, your eyes see different wavelengths at the same time.

So do color cameras.

[Corcaigh]

Uh, your eyes see different wavelengths at the same time.

So do color cameras.

Uh, thanks. :obvious:

Of course a device of this kind is doing that in the optical wavelengths.

But if you looked at it using optical, IR and UV you would not get the same response.

[Major Harris]

its a maryland thing.

no it isn't.

i'm surprised that people have never heard "silly" used in that manner.