"Invisibility Cloak" invented!

Oriel

Hi Folks,
A guy called Susumu Tachi has invented an "Invisibility cloak" using some new material, using beads of some description.
There are 6 small vidoes of this material on his site, which are absolutely amazing to watch.
WELL worth a look. Although really kinda freaky at the same time.

link








Enjoy.
S.

mad m

A mate of mine had a pic of a C.I.A agent with a clock on and he blended in with background.... something like u said it reflects whatever is behind it,i thought it was a skit or hoax

robbie1876

That is pretty cool. The video of the traffic moving in the background and the one in front of the plasma screen are pretty cool. Although he really should learn how to dance....

I can see technology becoming a busker's best friend.

bus77

Thats a fairly basic princible tbh, but it must have takin a fair bit of work to get the projected light to only show up on the object and no where else.

DMT

This is a one year old hoax.

quank

I think I saw something about this on Blue Peter around a year ago or something... if I remember correctly anyway.

seamus

Originally posted by DMT
This is a one year old hoax.

It's not a hoax. It's not an actual material which provides invisibilty, rather a combination of elements which create the illusion of something being transparent. Fairly simple idea, but quite difficult to pull of in real life.

The US and UK militaries are apparently looking into this as a valid type of camoflage. Even if they can create the illusion of 25-50% transparency, stationary troops and vehicles would be almost invisible to enemy aircraft and distant snipers.

Ultimately the entire system would need to function independently. That is, a fabric made up of thousands of pieces of material which can both project and receive visual data (or a checkered pattern of thousands of tiny alternating receiving and projecting pieces). Pieces would have to work in pairs, with the pairs on opposite sides of the person/vehicle. So each in the pair is transmitting what the other is receiving. A monumental task.

ARGINITE

very ghost in a shell like where can i get my hands on some of this stuff : )

deadduck

if thats for real, its ****ing amazing

Oriel

It's not a hoax at all. Look at the root of the guy's website. He's a leading Hi-tech inventor. He has a PhD and this is just one of his "research" projects. Been on the BBC website etc.

Link No hoax.

S.

Tellox

If it were for real, how come not a person on the street glanced at him when he was half invisble?

briano

Pieces would have to work in pairs, with the pairs on opposite sides of the person/vehicle. So each in the pair is transmitting what the other is receiving

Thats grand if the person is directly in front of the item with the material on it. Surely though if they looked at an object from off to the side it wouldn't appear right.

That said, the video of the street is pretty cool.

seamus

Originally posted by briano
Thats grand if the person is directly in front of the item with the material on it. Surely though if they looked at an object from off to the side it wouldn't appear right.

Well it would, because no matter what angle you look at it from, the picture being displayed to you is from the other side of the material, that's the point in the pairs.
It's far from perfect, for example, once the fabric creases, it becomes visible again, but it would give some degree of camoflage over the whole garment.

LoneGunM@n

That's some crazy sh!t ... have to be on the look out for creases appearing as if from nowhere

Raphael

How come in one video you could see his skeleton, other times you could see through him??

seamus

Originally posted by Raphael
How come in one video you could see his skeleton, other times you could see through him??

It's only a demonstration. You weren't actually seeing his skeleton, rather a projection of a skeleton, which only appeared on whatever material the board was made of.

Ebonyks

OK thats the dogs cajones! But if the material works in pairs, one side receiving and the other transmitting, then whats happening in the mirror video. He's placed the material where the mirror should be, but the other side is the wood frame. How is that working?

[EDIT] Actually on closer inspection of the material on site, doesn't matter, not quite as sci-fi as I first thought :P

http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/Brochure-e.pdf

Raphael

Originally posted by seamus
It's only a demonstration. You weren't actually seeing his skeleton, rather a projection of a skeleton, which only appeared on whatever material the board was made of.

In that case, its pretty fraudulent(sp?)

bus77

Originally posted by Ebonyks
OK thats the dogs cajones! But if the material works in pairs, one side receiving and the other transmitting, then whats happening in the mirror video. He's placed the material where the mirror should be, but the other side is the wood frame. How is that working?

No, you mixed up what the Japs did and what seamus was saying about a true invisability cloak.

The Japs just used external cameras and projectors.

If you wanted true invisability you'd need the cameras and projectors inside the object.

seamus

Originally posted by Ebonyks
OK thats the dogs cajones! But if the material works in pairs, one side receiving and the other transmitting, then whats happening in the mirror video. He's placed the material where the mirror should be, but the other side is the wood frame. How is that

What I was talking about was a different way of accomplishing the same thing. They way they're doing it is having a camera directly behind him, linked to a projector which is projecting the image directly towards him, creating the illusion of transparency. Essentially - they're actually using mirrors to bounce light about, so the camera/projector aren't *directly* in from or behind him.
In order for it to be a viable military solution, a garment or vehicle would need to be completely self-contained. An enemy wouldn't have much trouble spotting someone with a camera behind him and a projector in front of him!

Kobie

Definitely a hoax.

bus77

Originally posted by Kobie
Definitely a hoax.

What makes you think that?

Hi Folks,
A guy called Susumu Tachi has invented an "Invisibility cloak" using some new material, using beads of some description.

You have just blatently robbed that story from slashdot and pawned it off as your own discovery.


Shenanegans!

Kobie

I find it harder to comprehend how people in this day and age take things on t.v. at face value.

It's a basic blue screen trick - the same one that made Superman fly. He holds an object of a particular colour & afterwards they superimpose an image of whatever they want onto that object.

How can a material that's invisible show you what's inside his head? These are two entirely different concepts - X-Rays don't make you invisible, do they?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

you are a stupid child are you not

seamus

Originally posted by Kobie
I find it harder to comprehend how people in this day and age take things on t.v. at face value.

It's a basic blue screen trick - the same one that made Superman fly. He holds an object of a particular colour & afterwards they superimpose an image of whatever they want onto that object.

How can a material that's invisible show you what's inside his head? These are two entirely different concepts - X-Rays don't make you invisible, do they?

You have just completely ignored everything that everyone has posted, not bothered to read the website, and gone and posted what you thought, haven't you?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

seamus.. tomayto

Kobie

OK, just followed Ronoc's Slashdot link. Scroll down & you'll find this:

I saw the cloak demonstrated last month and talked to the U. of Tokyo people who were showing it and I have to tell you: this is about the lamest thing ever.

THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGY THERE AT ALL!

It's a grey cloak. That's it. A grey cloak. You look at it, and it's a grey cloak. Nothing special at all. But no, "please look at the video monitor!"

Oh, in the video monitor the cloak is sorta transparent. Why? Because they're doing an absolutely standard compositing effect IN THE VIDEO MONITOR.

The cloak is NOT transparent. It's just a piece of blue screen and they composite the background on it. But only if you look at a video monitor. In real life, the cloak is entirely opaque and it's just a grey cloak.

I asked the professor how long it would be before they had a real working prototype and he said "Maybe 20 years."

In other words, they have nothing. Just a concept. And it's not even a new concept. It's an old science fiction concept.

There is nothing to see here. It's just PR and a very standard old-hat video effect.

bus77

Originally posted by Kobie
I find it harder to comprehend how people in this day and age take things on t.v. at face value.

It's a basic blue screen trick - the same one that made Superman fly. He holds an object of a particular colour & afterwards they superimpose an image of whatever they want onto that object.

How can a material that's invisible show you what's inside his head? These are two entirely different concepts - X-Rays don't make you invisible, do they?

Yeah, but the japanese guys didnt claim it was anything more than a projection trick.
It was only Sinecure that put the name "Invisability Cloak" on it.

Ebonyks

I think most of us have grasped the wrong end of stick here with regards to this Susumu Tachi thing. This PDF should clear things up.

The kind of technology advance we're dreaming of is way off! It also helps if you read up on it a bit before making an opinion based on a few fancy pics and vids (as I've learned )

+5 Insightful

Ebonyks

That must have been d4mn insightful...so late in the game too...my work is done here.

Queue: Ebonyks dissappearing into the mist

Oriel

Originally posted by ronoc
You have just blatently robbed that story from slashdot and pawned it off as your own discovery.

Actually, it was the bbc website that I "robbed" - the one that I linked to, sbove. I looked up the guy's name online, found his website and linked to it.

Might I add I put "Invisibility Cloak" in apostropes - hence not to be taken literally. As did the BBC.

The defence rests its case.

S.

mad m

The guys on this thread saying he robbed this and its a blue screen trick get a grip lads,its just a thread and a bit of news for gods sake,i thought it was good so dont make a whole incident out of it.....

@Sinecure
thanks for bringing an interesting thread to my eyes anyway.....

Calibos

Here is a post I prepared earlier.