September 23rd, 2005
Invisibility Cloak
Brian Berris
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
No need for dressing up in all black when trying to be sneaky. Instead wrap yourself in an invisibility cloak and prance around like fool without being noticed… Well perhaps it hasn’t come that far, but the “invisibily cloak” has now become a reality. The material itself is like a large flexible display and a camera takes what it sees on the opposite side and displays it on the back making it ’see through’. It’s kind of like an invisibility the Preditor uses.
Here is a video of it in action. http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/images/oc-wired.mpg
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Rob says:
Hmm … wouldn’t it only be effective from one angle, though?
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Moo says:
It will revolutionize the way people get hit by cars…
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:10 pm
critter42 says:
Check the article date. This is not exactly “fresh” news…
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:57 pm
James says:
Only good for one point of view (angle + distance). It’s good for bond movies though.
By the way, were are those 3D displays that were just around the bend?
September 23rd, 2005 at 7:11 pm
David Johnston says:
Doesn’t have to be fresh to be cool. That’s pretty neat
September 23rd, 2005 at 8:50 pm
Mikey says:
I’ve got some more info. The whole thing hinges on the “retro-reflective cloth”.
This stuff is NOT a new high-tech electronic cloth with millions of lightsource points that duplicate “the missing portion of the blocked view” along with being able to correctly re-correlate the viewpoint differences and not
show the -wrong- angle. (That last specification by itself will require an order or two higher of computing power than we currently have available)
I smell a scam aimed at Venture Capitalists.
This cloth these guys appear to be pushing is -old- news.
Very old news.
At one time, I worked for the US Coast Guard on a black-hull boat. We were part of the construction fleet and we were responsible for building and maintaining all types of Aids to Navigation for ships and boats on the US waterways. Those nav aids are very important, they help keep heavily loaded deep-draft boats out of the shallow water and they’re sort of like traffic lane control signs. At night, beyond 500 yards, they are for the most part, invisible. Unless they have the retro reflective tape applied to them. This tape is made by 3M and is called “retro-reflective” because it -reflects- almost 80% of the light thats shined on it, no matter from how far away that light comes or what direction it comes from. Check out your local stop sign. THAT is retro-reflective tape in action. (It comes in all colors including white. White is what they use for projector screens in movie houses and is what is recommended for use with modern day video projectors, the kind used with computers)
The tape is kinda thick, approx 20-30 mils and is made of three or more layers consisting of at least a base layer, a layer of spray on microscopic glass beads (the actual reflector), a sealer layer and a transparent color top layer. This stuff is EVERYWHERE.
The tape idea is at least 30-40 years old, and has been in use by the Coast Guard since they discovered how well it reflects spotlight beams from towboats on the Ohio and Missippi rivers. And yes, those boats DO have incredibly bright spotlights, you need them when you’re pushing half a million tons of whatever upstream in the dark at three in the morning.
What you are looking at in the picture above is a PROJECTED image. Projected onto someone wearing a cape or coat made of this cloth. Meaning the projector is sharing the same field of view with the camera that took the picture that you are seeing.
This could get confusing.
It’s not magic: think of someone standing up in front of a motion picture screen in a theater, while the movie is playing. Think about how visible they actually are when the reference points that you normally use (the outline of their body, for instance) are oversrayed by whatever image the projector -paints- them with. In this instance, it’s the background they are standing in front of. Now add a coat of this flexible screen material, (been available for years, mind you) and you have a projector screen on the person, result:
Invisible people.
Hook up a camera to the input of the movie projector and move the whole thing, projector and camera unit, (minus the screen) outside. Take a still picture of the background, turn on the projector, and have your test subject walk around in front of the background scene.
The visual cues that tell you where they are have been blended into the background that’s been projected onto them. At least they would from the cameras perspective. Move that camera viewpoint any, and you lose the illusion due to angular correlation that you can’t correct for, because you are after all using a still frame or motion frame shot of the background. (minus the person wearing the screen)
Like I said, smells like money poured down a hole. Lots of money and a very large hole.
September 24th, 2005 at 9:13 am
BrianB says:
Very Interesting…. but then how do you explain this.
http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/images/oc-wired.mpg
September 24th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Mikey says:
Ok, I d/l’d it and heres my forensic analysis based on the evidence I’ve seen… (OOOhhhh….I’ve always wanted to say that..)
I believe it’s called Chroma key, and it’s old hat.
I think they’re using an advanced video processor to capture realtime moving outline or frame of just the garment only, (possibly by illuminating the garment with infrared and translating positional info)
then they inject into that resulting “frame” a pre-recorded image of the background.
Like looking through a garment shaped keyhole that moves around. And since the projector gets that keyhole image as it’s only video source, well, everything else is black. No projector illumination anywhere except on the garment.
Even explains the LCD monitor.
(another “outline”, except it shows a display that’s been synchronized with the injected pre-recorded background image)
Thats all there is: A recorded background tape, a video projector, a camera and some expensive chroma key processors. Oh and the garment made out of “retro-reflective” whatever.
I still smell scam.
I could do a proof of concept like this if I had the money….
September 24th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
James says:
If this were genuine, when the guy moves his arm in front of his head we would see through the sleeve and to his head, since the coat supposedly simply gathers the light from one side and outputs it on the other. This is not what we see. His head suddenly becomes invisible, and we see the background. This would be impossible using the method described, as the coat itself has no way of knowing what’s on the other side of his head. Indeed, by applying the same logic, the hood would offer no protection against viewers directly behind the wearer, as well as the more obvious vantage point directly in front. I therefore support Mikey’s theory.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Gizmodo says:
Invisitibility Cloak You’ll Never See
Susumu Tachi invented and designed an invisibility wall/cloak. This thing has been bouncing around the internet for a while. He seems to have gotten bored with his invisibility cloak and has decided to start work on an invisibility wall. It…
September 27th, 2005 at 6:30 am
Rick says:
They are just projecting the images with a projector… sheesh, we did this in middle school to play around..
September 27th, 2005 at 7:55 am
ben says:
isn’t an “invisible wall” called glass?
September 27th, 2005 at 8:38 am
EdZ says:
If you did some reading on their site, you’d know that this IS just done for the wow factor, but that there ARE ‘real’ applications for it, mainly in the augmented reality and telepresance fields.
Basically, the article sumary is dead wrong, the cloak itself is not a display and has never been claimed to be, except by the guy who wrote this summary.
September 27th, 2005 at 9:51 am
DiarioIP says:
Quiero ser invisible
Bueno, en realidad lo que quiero es uno de estos. El video lo dice todo….
September 27th, 2005 at 10:13 am
bill says:
man, you guys act so unimpressed with this. like you guys could do any better? please.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Dick Pacific says:
This is clearly pretty fake and while there is a cloak that does indeed have a display, it’s current state of development is nowhere near what is artificially shown in the video. Furthermore it has so far been designed to only work basically from three angles.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Sean says:
Yeah, pretty darned tough to wrap myself in a projector screen and put a camera in front and a projector in back. What happens after I move out of the line of sight of the projector? I’m an idiot wrapped in a projector screen. Or I could wear a harness with the video camera on one side and the projector hanging a few feet off the other side, no one would see me coming then
).
September 27th, 2005 at 10:58 am
whirlyman says:
Christ, you guys are idiots!
The “cloak” is not a display. IT’S NOT A DISPLAY! And they never said it was. They call it “retro-reflectum” material. You see that shadow the guy is casting in the video? That’s from the projector, you dolts!
And no, this is not so easily explained/duplicated, but I’ll give it a shot. Notice the shadow cast by the TV and how it dissapears when shown “through” the cloak? I believe that’s because the dudes filmed the scene before hand without actors with a spotlight near the camera (in fact you can see from the “old” TV shadows that the light source was probably above the camera). Then, all they had to do was project the scene from the side, match up the scale and press play. The movie playing on the TV was likely timed to play in sync with the projection. As far as the projection not playing off the tie or the guys face, it was probably too low of a power setting to reflect properly. The only thing I can’t explain is the camera shake.
Still, I could easily be mistaken and I doubt I could replicate the feat. Well done to these guys.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Some Guy says:
Here’s the page on the website of the lab that developed this:
http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/oc.html
It explains how they do it.
- SG
September 27th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Tim says:
Saw it at NextFest in Chicago this summer. It doesn’t look as good in real life as it looks in the video.
September 27th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Toby Udstuen says:
I saw this demoed at the Wired Magazine NextFest Show in Chicago at Navy Pier. The demo had a sort of viewfinder like device on the table. The viewfinder looks on to a image produced by a regular projector. Then a guy in a yellow raincoat comes over and stands between the viewfinder and the projected image. The person looking through the viewfinder will see that the raincoat has now changed to completly conceals it’s wearer by blending him into the projected image behind him. Really cool if they can ever get flexible display tech to be built as thin as fabric till then this is a dream project waitin on new tech advances. Keep it up!
September 27th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
LA says:
I work in the SFX/VFX industry for years.
This is the OLDEST TRICK in the book.
Half mirrors are used since 19th century at least (in theaters) and early enough in cinemas.
It is a nice application, but not cutting edge tech.
September 28th, 2005 at 4:16 am
Heh... Right says:
Your all so Nerdy…. Just appreciate the fact that it looks reasonably cool, and shut the fuck up.
September 28th, 2005 at 4:59 am
zerohundred says:
This vid is much more interesting…
It has 2 moving cars behind it…
http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/images/oc-okugai3.mpg
The first linked video is staionary, and therefore does not impress me too much.
If you look at that one, though, it is much more impressive.
Also, this one of the ball (with staionary background) is very good, as well.
http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/images/oc-s.mpg
September 28th, 2005 at 7:59 am
girl says:
I saw the video, but I don’t get it.
September 28th, 2005 at 9:04 am
Joe says:
I have the only REAL invisibility cloak on the planet and I use it to take pictures of your mom in the shower
September 28th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Tamir says:
Now that i am the proud owner of an invisible cloak should i use my power of invisability to fight crime or save the world
September 28th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
momalyd says:
isnt this juss that cheese SFX from the 70’s and 80’s i think it is only still used in the Conan O’Brien Show
September 28th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
Alex says:
Umm i just found this forum and i gotta say, you guys are not smart. I mean jesus lets just be rational for a second, there is clearly no such thing as an invisibility cloak. There, done. You guys have posted the longest, most detailed analyses to disprove this: get a life.
September 28th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I agree with Alex says:
I 100% agree with Alex, poster number 28… I crack up everytime I read these ‘net genuises talking gibberish about how they think something works… please get a life… the ‘net is so full of wannabe super intelligent ppl… you should really read what you write… you sound like supernerds…
September 29th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
jakesvj says:
Hilarious thread…
September 30th, 2005 at 6:34 am
me sa so so says:
u guys are gai its true!!!
September 30th, 2005 at 9:46 am
me sa so so says:
losers
September 30th, 2005 at 9:46 am
eejits says:
well, well, well, i believe in this cloak. and is it invisible? well that depends what invisible means. if it means you cannot see it, then it is invisible. cest tout. it is an invisible cloak.
October 16th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Sonja says:
I would like to know if I can buy a cloak that looks like the invisibility cloak from the movie for my 5 year old son, he loves the movie.
October 26th, 2005 at 3:14 am
Les says:
Hmmm,.. call me when it works.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:45 am
Fickus says:
I think the video is more about the dance moves these guys do than demonstrating some new kind of technology. just an error in translating japanese to engrish
November 1st, 2005 at 2:22 pm
Fredrik says:
acala balala
December 27th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
mayoblue says:
I know we all sound like a bunch of nerds (to the people who don’t have a clue about anything), but this has to do with refraction of light, or the bending of the lightwave, so this is a real technology. This technology was invented years ago by Bell Labs and has been used with fiber-optic lightwave. If they were to develop some type of a fiber-coat, this invisable cloak would be very possible.
May 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Charlie says:
I lost my invisibility cloak…could you please help me feel for it?
May 29th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
yo yo says:
my thoughts are invisible!
August 4th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Linda says:
when i read this moring on yahoo i started going crazy and thinking this is the best thing ever!!!!!for those who dont know why i shall explain it….this is the best thing ever cuz we are in the age of technological advancement!!!!!This is just exstatic to think about!!! FOR THE IDIOTS WHO CALL THIS INVENTION A SCAM I SAY YOU ARE THE DUMBEST BANANA IN THE BUNCH!!! YOU ARE ALL AS DUMB AS THE PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT THAT THE GUY SAYING HE INVENTED A TV WAS A SCAM OR GOING TO THE MOON WOULD NEVER HAPPEN WELL YOU RETARDS LOOK AT US WHAT THE HELL DO WE HAVE NOW!!! THE ABILITY TO GO TO THE MOON AND A TV AND MANY OTHER THINGS!!! i looked this up and when the elevator was getting invented people thought that guy was mental!! HE was shunned by his people! AND LOOK AT WHAT THE HELL WE HAVE IN OUR DAMN SKYSCRAPERS!!!!ELEVATORS WOULD PEOPLE TODAY CALL HIM CRAZY!!!NO!! JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE DONT F***ING CALL IT A SCAM THOSE WHO DO ARE AS SMART AS A ROCK!! you people are the biggest rocks(RETARDS!!) ever…i am ashamed for those who cant imagine the impossible…oh and you can call me crazy but when scientists come out with THE ACTUAL THING you will definately think “hey that person was right just because things seem impossible doesnt mean we cant acheive those things”…you can call me crazy for this too but…when i get older i will be a scientist and nuerologist and i will find a way to make people smarter…in fact i already have a thoery of how to do it!! U SAY THATS CRAZY ALSO!!! then next time you think of something that would be awesome for someone to invent u should think of urself as crazy for even imagining that…that is if u think all of this is crazy after what i said… anyway wanna see a real working cloak also an updated video go to www.something.com and think about this you idiots and please let me know what you think just leave another comment-
October 20th, 2006 at 5:13 pm