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This ideas is essentially two invention slammed to one
To understand this idea you should know what a Ghillie suit and an optical fiber is.
What am I thinking? I am thinking of a passive optical camouflage, which works by rerouting light around the object via optical fiber.
While there are military
scientist who are trying to make mobile combat suits, that work like this but is much more nimble and form fitting. Civilians are lucky to not have to worry about getting shot at. But sometime a little camouflage is good for things like bird watching.
To make this theoretical suit you could first make all the strips. Which when assembled it, looks like a bear suit. Each strip must cover the same spot on each side of the body.
You then take the strip out and place it on the ground and start laying out the fibers. First mark the middle of each strip, then sew/glue/whatever the stacks of fiber on top of it. Making sure of course that the stack when looked at the end side looks like a rectangle, and not a semicircle or anything else.
Using duct tape, tape each layers of fiber together, to help ensure that each camopixel is relatively uniform.
Stack each strip back together, and sew/duct tape/glue, the center of each strip together. If you forgot to calculate the length of each successive fiber layer on each strip, then using a knife, cut diagonally in a decremental fashion for each exposed strip. (Remember that it must be done relatively exact on the other side as well.)
Well there you have it... I think :)
A relatively poor man (in military terms) Passive Optical Camouflage.
Now if someone has the money and time. Help me see if this can work.
If someone has only lots of time instead, please make a concept art to assist other viewers in understanding this rambling. Thanks a lot!
Ghillie suit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghillie_suit
Wikipedia article: [mofosyne, Jun 06 2006, last modified Jun 07 2006]
Optical Fiber
http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Optical_fiber
Wikipedia article: [mofosyne, Jun 06 2006]
[link]
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By the way, is the design practical? |
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it might work from a few angles, as long as you 'wire-up' the jacket in such a way I reckon... |
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Well the suit will work in near 360 degree, as the fibers covers all side. |
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However it does not give invisiblity to the top of the wearer however.
Its just too much trouble, and too complex to do so. |
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(By the way, i can always do with an extra bun thanks! ;) ) |
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I like it. Reminds me of Invisiball. |
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Why is the top of the wearer different from the other sides? |
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I thought it might not work when looked at the top, as you cannot exactly place fiber optics in such a way that you can see the ground. So what you might see on the top, is just a solid colour. |
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But since it is likely for bird watching, its not likely that there would be any helicopter searching for you. |
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(Damm nearly got a fishbone. To those that "-" me, please state why :/, thanks) |
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maybe use a sphere and run around inside like an invisible mouse. |
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Ha! Nice idea greyfiend! Write it up, i'll "+" it up! :) |
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just wait for flexible displays, and then have a suit covered in them with camera's on all sides displaying the opposite side........ |
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I think it's not very predatoresque. I got very, VERY, VERY pissed off at a former employer who asked me to sign some BS legal doc. It asked for all of the inventions/.. I wanted to disclude prior to signing this piece of crap legal piece of crap.
Something like what you mention here I, in my limited sanity, detailed in this "disclosure" (Is that what it is called, I can't remember?) - I was pissed off in the extreame. (I should inject here, that heretofor all agreements were verbal.) I probably listed 150 original inventions that I claimed as my own. (They all got signed off on, too. that was funny as well.) |
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As far as my understanding goes, It would work in your application, but there are serious flaws militarily If I understand what you propose correctly.
A flashlight directed at the camoflague suite would turn the back & sides of the suite into a beacon. Dust & Smoke would suck, also. |
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Which herbal tea was specifically designed with concealment in mind? |
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First assume a spherical suit. The ends of the fibres lie on the surface. Since all the connecting lengths of fibre must pass through the surface of a smaller concentric sphere of smaller surface area, the concentration of fibre ends on the outer surface will be limited. Same argument for a 2D arrangement (substitute 'cylindrical' for 'spherical') but less so. With a more complex shape and a limited thickness (you must leave room for the wearer) the problem will be worse, and only a small proportion of the suit will be covered with fibre ends. |
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On the plus side, even a low density of fibre ends may help, and it may be possible to flare the ends of the fibres so they cover a relatively large area for a given bulk of fibre. A little voice is whispering that for light from random directions a flared end on a fibre would not allow it to capture more light than a fibre of the same diameter without the flared end, since if it did you could passively concentrate a diffuse light field. It might smooth things out a bit and make you look less like a walking fibre lamp when backlit. |
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Actually, I think it's worse yet. Imagine a bundle of perfectly transparent fibres, with hexagonal cross section, packed with no gaps and perfectly straight. Viewed from end on, the amount of light seen at one end will equal the amount of light falling on the other end. Next bury a small object in the bundle. Now, the amount of light transmitted will be the same, but the cross sectional area will be increased by at least the area of the object (since all the fibres must go around it at that point). Thus, at best, the system will block the same amount of light as the object on its own, and the only possible advantage is to convert a small opaque object into a large translucent one. Don't get me wrong, this is a real advantage. But the payload (the wearer) needs to be small compared to the suit, even for it to have much effect in 1D, let alone 2D or 3D. It could be optimised for two important directions, for example with your face and your back, respectively, towards the enemy. |
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I tried this 1D version using the bundle of fibres from a UFO lamp and a little toy person, and found it highly effective against a variety of backgrounds. |
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Wow... thats pretty cool, do you have a picture of that figure? |
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