I don't want to wait for those large files to download.
Can someone who has seen them answer if the camera pans?

Sure this looks okay straight on, but how does it handle
being viewed from multiple angles?

It's not as high tech as it seems. It appears to be little more than the effect that you see when you watch the weatherperson on TV deliver the weather forecast.

The setup is like this:

background <---camera ojbect-to-camoflague <--- projector

With a wire running from the camera to the projector. The object wears bits of projector-screen material. It's not quite like Predator where the object-to-camoflague has an all-in-one system that transmits light from the back of the suit to the front. It's more like watching a movie with someone standing in the way but holding a small projector screen in front of themselves. In this case, the movie is whatever is behind the person.

The camera doesn't pan. It is, as Tim said, just a clever illusion. One of the shots in the (large) movie shows a bloke in a seethrough jacket moving about, which is fantastic to watch. It has a certain cool factor.

Another of the shots seems to betrays the purpose: a lightpen (of sorts) is seen attached to a robotic arm, and the arm is then camoflaged out of the scene, which is like some sort of primitive 3D GUI.

For anyone who saw the new James Bond movie, where the car featured this kind of optical camoflage system, I would just like to point out that you can't hide behind something that is actively projecting its own background.

Edited by author 12-06-2002 04:06 PM
I'm not sure I get this... If this is a simply a projector projecting an image onto objects covered in projector-screen material, why is there not even a faint image visible on the hands holding the objects? Why does the background image only fall on the object?

Is this legit, or are they just using blue screen tecniques and filling in a faded image of the background?

Edited by author 12-06-2002 06:00 PM
At first, I was mildly impressed, but, as rusty already pointed out, the sphere and the brick would both show the man behind them. Also, there's a stack of magazines on top of the books behind the X'Tal sign that only show up in the projection, and if you go frame by frame, the man in the jacket passes through the edge of the projection as he walks off camera...

I don't think you guys are watching very carefully.

This is more than just a brick covered in projector screen material. Notice how the letters don't appear to change size as the end of the brick rotates towards you. If the image was just being projected on the brick, the letters would get bigger. Same with the sphere - there's no spherical distortion of the projected image.

And the coat is an even more dramatic example! Despite the folds and wrinkles in the fabric, the text projected onto it remains roughly the same size.

They are not projecting static images. They are dynamically changing the projection in response to the movement of the brick, the sphere, and the man in the coat.

Look again - this is extremely cool stuff!

Not true, puddin'. You're not thinking about the geometry properly. The projection is from the same position as the camera (or almost), and when you do that, you don't see distortion in the projected image even when the illuminated objects are curved or wrinkled. Someone standing off to the side would see distortions, but when your viewing angle is right by the projector you can't see them. It's hard to explain why but if you think hard about it maybe you'll see that this is how it works.

Edited by author 12-08-2002 01:31 AM
Never mind.

http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/proje...v/images/mirror.mpg

thats the link for the actual video footage of the mirror camouflage

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

thats the site