From: pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White)
Subject: Re: SR: Ruthenium(?) Swords
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 00:45:18 GMT

wildcard@nevada.edu ( WildCard !!) writes:

>In article <BuFDzJ.9z8@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) writes:

>>If you think about it carefully, you would realize that camouflage
>>has a negligible affect for moving objects, *even if* the camouflage
>>is dynamic.  Remember the Predator?  When hiding in the bushes, he
>>was extremely difficult to spot.  When moving around and killing people,
>>he was only marginally more difficult to track than a normal target.
>>Think that something better than the Predator camou is possible?
>>Not unless you go to a full Romulan Cloakinig Device.  Fact is that, since
>>most people have two eyes, merely altering the surface of an object
>>to *any* degree will not hide it completely in the background,
>>and, I repeat, especially when it moves.

>Sorry to burst your bubble, but (if memory serves) Shadowtech explicitly says
>that the fibers can change color so quickly that there is no distortion or
>bleeding with motion. There is one target number to spot Ruthenium and it is
>the same still as it is moving and it is based on the numer of sensors you
>have for the unit. "Better" than Predator cammo is possible *and* it is a full
>suit of Ruthenium fibers with 10+ sensors on it and and extended battery pack
>to keep the fibers blending for more than a couple of minutes. (sidenote: the
>Predators cammo is superior in the fact that it seemed to be able to used 
>indefinately and is not wrecked too badly by damage to the wearer).

Perhaps, I did not make my main point sufficiently clear: *no* amount of
mere camouflaging can completely hide a three dimensional object in
its background, and the object moving will vastly compound the problem.
I want to first clarify the difference between camouflaging and cloaking.
A cloaking device somehow distorts the very fabric of space such that
radiation (of some frequency range) will bend around the "bubble"
containing the Romulan Warbird.  Light is simply moving around the
cloaked ship uninterupted be the hull.  However, with camouflage, the
surface of an object is altered in its optical properties to resemble
whatever is in its background.  This is a fundamentally different
kind of effect.  Consider a very simple & silly example: hiding a shoebox in
an empty polka dot room.  Presumably, the box is sitting somewhere
on the floor (or even suspended in the air) and is painted to blend
into what is behind it from my line of sight.  I concede that, in
principle, it is plausible to paint this shoebox such that I will
not see it, i.e. all those polka dots are very precisely placed to
line up with the pattern behind it and the shading is carefully
done to compensate for the lighting.  Already we have the problem
that it will cast a shadow, but I will forgive that failing for a
moment.  What happens as I casually stroll about the room?  Those
polka dots will no longer line up with the background pattern!
The optimal camou pattern depends on my point of observation.
In fact, our shy shoebox may have trouble hiding simply because
I have two eyes.  The problem is a matter of ray tracing: a surface
emulating its background *cannot* guarantee perfect blending
from more that a single point of view.  This has *nothing* to do with
the speed of the color shifting.  If the shoebox is moving, it
will make things vastly more difficult for our Gedanken experiment
painter (and speed is not a factor here).  Now hiding motionless
next to a wall would yield some minimal distortion of the wall
pattern and would be highly effective.  But, IMO, a moving distortion
will be quickly and easily noticed since our brains are quite good at
at integrating spatial information.  I reiterate: the telltale
distortions are inevitable.

The unavoidable problem is that even a perfect active system of camouflage
is far too passive at hiding spatial information.  What is needed
is some form of cloaking, say a massive local holographic override
of all visual information.

I am not talking about rules here, merely reality.  Ignore it if
you see fit.


--Peter

>                                    - WildCard !!

>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>+  "It's like Sartre said,'Consciousness (in this case The Matrix) is a being +
>+  such that in its being, its being is in question insofar as this being im- +
>+  plies a being other than itself.' Profound? Maybe.I dont think it matters."+
>+                                   - WildCard !!                             +
>+                                     [ "Plex Personalities," Shadowland BBS] +
>+--------  wildcard@redrock.nevada.edu  --------------------------------------+

______________________________________________________________________________
						|
     "Guards!  Let me draw their fire!"		|	p-white@uiuc.edu
		   --Scapegoat,_Marshal Law_	|
______________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc