We already have heads-up displays for cars that use infrared to look into the darkness beyond our headlights. And Sony makes a videocamera that can record infrared, to the delight of those who have found it sees through clothes under certain conditions.

Let's expand this to a general view screen which we can tune to the wavelengths of hypothetical aliens.

Like the insect kingdom, see the world in ultraviolet - look at all the wonderful hidden patterns in flowers and spiderwebs. Watch what's going on in the far infrared. See through everything with x-rays, and detect radioactive waste without a Geiger counter. Even watch radio waves (though you wouldn't be able to make out anything smaller than a large building).
-- DrCurry, Nov 01 2002

Vision Enhancing Glasses http://www.halfbake...Enhancing_20Glasses
Not quite the same idea. [phoenix, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Interesting, high-tech intersubjectivity.
-- jackoutofthebox, Nov 01 2002


UB: clear enough in the description, I think. (False color imaging is a well-established technology on this planet, even in Australia; the idea here is a tunable version.)
-- DrCurry, Nov 01 2002


The implication that the imaging is converted to something humans can see is clear to me as the very heart of the idea. That it must be presented in some sort of false color translation to the human spectrum is implied equally clearly.

The idea of collecting the whole spectrum and presenting it in a unified way is, to me, a pretty compelling idea. It makes me try to imagine what it would be like to use such a thing. For that reason alone, I think it is quite croissant worthy.
-- bristolz, Nov 02 2002


[UB] A colour translation algorithm for the human visible spectrum could be just to "compress" the fuller spectrum into our perceptual range - infra-red is seen as red, red is seen as orangey-red... UV is seen as violet. Thusly our perception of the currently visible spectrum would be slightly degraded, but we could squeeze in the cool new stuff on the ends.

More of a problem for those pesky x-/ gamma-rays, maybe, but perhaps the principle would hold.
-- whimsickle, Nov 04 2002


I would like to see sound waves and hear the visible spectrum.
-- FarmerJohn, Nov 04 2002


Scorpions are almost invisible to the naked eye in the wild, but will glow brightly under the illumination of a black light.
-- snikrepkire, Apr 22 2004


And for the equestrians, a helmet that splits your vision into two views from the sides, so you can get a feeling what it's like to be a prey beast, designed to be able to detect predators while grazing.

I believe horses see in black and white.....funny, they can always detect the slightest touch of green grass.....might have to incorporate an enhanced sense of smell into this.
-- normzone, Apr 22 2004



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