TOKYO -- Kazutoshi Obana's gray, hooded coat doesn't just keep him dry in a
downpour. It can also make him seem invisible.
On a clear day at Tokyo University, Obana stands outside and dons the coat.
Viewed through a special projector lens, the people behind him appear as
images in a fuzzy, greenish tint on his coat -- as if he were see-through.
"This is a kind of augmented reality," said Susumu Tachi, a Tokyo
University professor of computer science and physics, during the recent
demonstration of his invention.
Tachi, who is also the founding head of the Virtual Reality Society of
Japan, designed the coat using microscopic reflectors, which act like a
movie screen. They can even reflect images when the material is wrinkled.
In fact, Tachi's "invisibility" coat is a camera trick.
A video camera behind the coat is linked to a projector, which bounces the
image off the front of the coat's reflective surface. Because there is no
time lag between what's happening behind the wearer and the image cast on
the front of the coat, the viewer has the illusion he is seeing straight
through the coat.
Philip Moynihan, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., said the idea has broad applications in medical surgery,
construction and aviation, although it remains in an "embryonic stage."
"I think it's got tremendous potential, once it's refined," Moynihan said.
One of the hurdles will be to make the technology small, affordable and
viewable with the naked eye, he added.
Tachi acknowledges that the technology still requires too many parts: It
can't be seen without peering through the projector lens. Also, an
affordable product is years away.
Moynihan said the U.S. military has studied similar technology as
futuristic camouflage for years. In the mid-1990s, he and another scientist
conceived of "adaptive camouflage" images for stealth or armored vehicles
that could help them blend in with any type of surroundings.
"We wanted something that could adapt to changing light conditions because
present camouflage can be spotted at certain angles and can be seen in
infrared lighting," Moynihan said. They never made a prototype and
abandoned the project when their funding ran out.
Still, Moynihan thinks adaptive camouflage technology could one day allow
soldiers to take a picture of their surroundings and digitally transfer the
image using a handheld computer to the surface of their clothing.
Others, such as Richard Schowengerdt, a military researcher in Lakewood,
Calf., are looking into the technology as a possible way of hiding
sprawling top-secret facilities. Schowengerdt's "Project Chameleo" is
examining modified versions that might emit or absorb energy to minimize
radar or sonar detection.
But nonmilitary applications are Tachi's primary goal.
In the future, surgeons may not need to make large incisions if they wear
gloves that project what's on the inside of a patient using a CAT scan or
MRI data, Tachi said.
Another idea is to coat the inside of an airplane cockpit with micro
reflectors. Hard landings would be a thing of the past if pilots could
gauge how far they are above the ground just by looking at an image of the
outside terrain projected on the floor, he said.
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