Invisibility like Predator, Ghost in the shell

  • Thread starter Thread starter GTOM
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Shell
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of invisibility suits, exploring various theoretical approaches and technologies that could enable such capabilities. Participants consider both practical applications and the challenges associated with achieving effective invisibility across different angles and wavelengths.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests using mini cameras and pixels to mimic the background, questioning the realism of hiding a human from various angles and sensors.
  • Another participant references existing technology used in vehicles, noting that invisibility only appears effective from specific angles.
  • A proposal for a "superpixel" display is introduced, which would need to project different colors in various directions to achieve true invisibility, highlighting the immense power and heat requirements for such technology.
  • Some participants discuss the necessity of being invisible from all directions, with one arguing that partial invisibility could suffice for certain missions.
  • There is a debate about the effectiveness of pixelated distortion versus regular cars in terms of conspicuousness in urban environments.
  • A participant envisions a fabric made of nylon or polyester with embedded pixels to create a pliable invisibility cloak, suggesting that current technology could make this feasible.
  • Another participant references a psychological experiment to argue that total invisibility is unnecessary, as partial effectiveness could be sufficient to avoid detection.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express multiple competing views on the feasibility and requirements of invisibility technology, with no consensus reached on the best approach or the necessity of total invisibility.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge limitations in current technology and the need for further advancements in materials science and display technology to achieve effective invisibility.

GTOM
Messages
982
Reaction score
68
What do you think about invisibility suits? One possibility would have lots of mini cameras and pixel that mimic the background of body on the front of the body. But is it a bit realistic to entirely hide a human from different angles and wavelengths, from sensors too? Another option i thought, that the suit transform visible and IR light to radio waves in analog way. Radio waves go through the body, then transformed back. Alhough metallic equipment is really unpleasant in this situation. I wondered that cloak around metallic stuff should be inflated to be spherical, so at least no problem with which pixel on the foreground belongs to cam on background.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Getting invisibility to work in a useful way would require something that doesn't exist yet, which I call a "superpixel".

Imagine a video display that is a 360° cylinder with the person hiding inside:

All existing displays attempt to make each point on the screen look the same regardless of where the viewer is. (Viewing angle). For invisibility to work, each point on the the surface of the cylinder would need to be able to project different colors in different directions. Nintendo's 3ds does this to a very limited extent, (two images, one for each eye) but you'd probably need thousands or millions of images for the effect to work in the field.

What's more, the brightness of the display would have to match that of the objects behind what is being hidden. In daylight, the power requirements would be immense and the heat would likely bake the person hiding inside.
 
Thank you. Well ín order tó complete the mission one don't have tó be invisible from áll directions. At worst four camera watching an intersection, and possible tó track someone tó security core
 
Algr said:
All existing displays attempt to make each point on the screen look the same regardless of where the viewer is.

Not all: http://www.3dfusion.com/glasses-free-3d-optics.html And that's not the limit. I heard of displays with 64 different directions.
 
GTOM said:
Well ín order tó complete the mission one don't have tó be invisible from áll directions.

True, but presumably you can't control where the intended target goes, so you do need some flexibility. In the example with the car, there is a question of why hide a car on a city street? Wouldn't a regular car be less conspicuous than a pixelated distortion blob?
 
Algr said:
In the example with the car, there is a question of why hide a car on a city street? Wouldn't a regular car be less conspicuous than a pixelated distortion blob?

The pixelated distortion blob makes the regular car even less conspicuous.
 
So far I have not witnessed pixelated distortion blobs where a car is supposed to be.
Well yes, there was that one time at a party ages ago.
 
Algr said:
True, but presumably you can't control where the intended target goes, so you do need some flexibility. In the example with the car, there is a question of why hide a car on a city street? Wouldn't a regular car be less conspicuous than a pixelated distortion blob?

An agent has to hide from cameras. Not a car.
 
  • #10
I would envision fabric strands of some nylon or polyesters who would have embedded pixels axially on the outer perimeter woven in such a way it would mimic an LED based screen but pliable like fiberglass/nylon/polyester cloth... such a fabric could be made into the fabled cloak of invisibility which Frodo used to mimic the rock in the Lord of The Rings book/movie.

I don't see why with today's technology and miniaturization such a feat could not be done... some engineering materials science majors could take this on. Meta-materials were sort of on this wavelength.

http://www.iop.org/resources/topic/archive/metamaterials/
 
Last edited:
  • #11
Total invisibility is not required at all. You have seen the demonstration where people were asked to count the number of people with black T-shirts in a video. Afterwards, they were asked if they saw anything unusual; usually no one saw anything out of the ordinary. What actually occurred was as man in a gorilla costume wandered in from the right moving through the crowd, stopping to talk, then moving off to the left. If you don't expect it, you probably won't see it!

So, the ideas proposed here need only be partially effective to work. Let's do it!