# Talk:Active camouflage

I had an idea a while ago for this kind of thing, something made where on one side there was a tiny pinhole camera, and on the other side an lcd. These camera / lcd combos would cover the object at around 1 camera/lcd combo per centimetre.
[maestro] 08:30, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I disagree that this should be merged into camouflage. However, I think optical camouflage should be merged into here. Thoughts? -Joseph (Talk) 03:07, 2004 Oct 10 (UTC)

I think active camouflage should be kept seperate, but linked, of course. Optical camouflage, OTOH, should be merged and redirected to active camouflage. The article includes early experiments into the concept, while the later includes the Japanese experiments with X'tal Vision into developing optical camouflage. Optical camouflage should be included as a title, as the experiments use the name as the concept.--YoungFreud 05:18, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, the main article on camouflage as it is now is quite brief and could be expanded nicely with this section. The main article already discusses adaptive camouflage, so this article could fit right in. Also, I think people looking for information on adaptive camo will go looking in the camouflage article, as there is no consensus really about naming this technology. If someone has a good idea of how to expand this article further then it might be good to keep it seperate, but right now I feel camouflage is shorter than it should be, especially if we remove the currently double information on active camo. -- Solitude 07:40, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
I agree. camouflage should have a linked reference to active camouflage and optical camouflage should be merged with active camouflage. I mean it's the same thing unless optical camouflage is considered a specific form of active camouflage. Either way I don't think they are distinct enough to warrant separate articles and they both cite the same fictional examples --FlooK 07:20, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Another vote that active/adaptive/optical camouflage would make a nice subsection to the main page, which can only benefit from structuring it into sections of history / military / biological / active camouflage. It would be easier to manage the duplicate content. The active camouflage section should only contain the concrete or historical uses (and maybe their fictional equivalents) of active camouflage. Related technology demonstrations (such as the invisibility cloak, recent experiments, art projects, augmented reality, etc.) should have their own page where they can be discussed in depth and with pictures as they advance, without giving too much bulk to the main page. For example, I don't consider the surveillance suit image really essential to this article, but it would do nicely on a separate "computer mediated reality" (or whatever named) page, linked to from an introductory paragraph in the main article. Femto 13:05, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here I am, trying to come up with a witty but non-insulting remark about being misconceived or pedantic (their words, not mine, I swear), and you just tell me you were wrong (which it not necessarily wasn't, just unusual). Come here to be slapped in the face with a wet octopus!
By the way, the "Did you know..." section on the Main_Page suggests that chameleons change color to blend into their surroundings, which is another misconception, according to their article. Instead of change color and blend... like chameleons it should be change color like chameleons and blend... Can someone change it or tell me where to do it? Femto 15:08, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nice spotting that error, I've fixed it. For next time, editing the main page can be done here: Wikipedia:Editing_the_main_page. -- Solitude 15:26, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! Femto 16:06, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


### Invisibility and holodeck technology are one and the same thing, but at different perspective viewpoints
I discovered that invisibility and holodeck type technology are both inverse forms of each other based on a well defined shared geometry.
I have a webpage on Yahoo Geocities that details my work and explains what I am talking about,but i'm also new to Wikipedia.
Is posting personal webpages allowed in this forum?

No. And it's not a forum. It's a collaborative writing project. What's the address of your Geocities webpage? Arbo 17:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not selling anything on it I just explain my own contributions to the field of adaptive camouflage and immersion technology(as a by-product of adaptive camouflage)of which i've had figured out for over ten years now.
I also developed a concept that I call Light-Interfacing, which I believe will make possible invisibility and holodeck type immersion technology.

Have you read the research done by MIT's Media Lab that gives astronomically-high (terrabit) figures for the data required just to create a single moment or frame for one hologram of one life-size person? I read this in Scientific American 15 years ago. The amount of data required for an active hologram of a moving human-sized figure is so great that even a roomfull of the processor and memory technologies we have now are inadequate for more one second of active movement, and the texture maps could not be generated on-the-fly; every possible rendering of 3D attitude and lighting angle would have to be ray-traced and stored in advance, with very efficient caching. You need a room full of Cray XM-P's for just one human figure, and any unexpected data to be simulated would be out of the question, ie: not generatable in real time. Even if you had all that, the hologram isn't going to look realistic as it does in Star Trek, where it is simply faked by actors. Instead it will look like your typical unconvincing flat-rendered textures in video games.
Data is just data, the storing and retrieval of which is subject to Moore's Law.  What requires a room of Crays today will require a PalmPilot in a few decades. -Toptomcat 18:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Good luck with your work.  Arbo 17:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

animals didn't invent it
animals don't invent
they adapt
Dudtz 8/25/05 4:18 PM EST

Animals adapt to their environment/surroundings, and the cumulative process is known as evolution. I have changed "invented" to "evolved". Arbo 17:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The scramble suit, as presented in 'A Scanner Darkly', does not seem to actually be a form of active camoflage.  When I read it, the focus seemed to be on keeping the wearer's identity completely anynomous rather than actually keeping them from being seen, making them 'vague' rather than invisible.  
This established, what IS the first appearence of proper active camoflage in science fiction? -Toptomcat 14:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I want to say it was Neuromancer, but Gibson doesn't go into too much detail about it (from what I remember), although I remember it was an outgrowth of the same fabric Peter Riviera wears. I know the Ghost in the Shell manga was the first major work that demostrated it visually and broke it down somewhat technically, thanks to Shirow's footnotes. --YoungFreud 23:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Predator demonstrated it visually before GITS, I think. Dosboot 21:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparently as the result of a somewhat incomplete merger, the "Active camouflage or 'scramble suit'" section and the "Optical camouflage" section of this article are largely redundant with each other.  They refer to the same movies and books as examples, etc. PubliusFL 15:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The significance of the  top photo is quite unclear, and its caption is unintelligible: Illustrating the concept, i.e. active capture and re-display, creates an "illusory transparency", also known as "computer mediated reality"  Can somebody rewrite that in English? Elphion (talk) 06:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

There were no sources at all in the following section, so I've boldly brought it here. If you can find sources for (parts of) it, feel free to add them and it back to the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
"==In fiction==

The active camouflage suit by name is credited to science fiction author Philip K. Dick in his 1974 novel A Scanner Darkly. Worn by the narcotics double agent Bob Arctor/Fred, the "scramble suit" is described as a flexible sheath covering the body of the wearer with a reflective/refractive coating on the inside surface that transfers the camouflaging pattern — projected by a holographic lens mounted on the wearer's head — onto the outside surface of the sheath.
Dick's invention has been copied many times in novels, films and video games to become a standard device in science fiction. Examples appear in the Artemis Fowl books as cam-foil and cham-pods, the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Predator, the James Bond film Die Another Day, the Doom and Metal Gear Solid video game series, the MMOFPS game PlanetSide, the Halo video game series, the Super Smash Brothers game series, the Crysis nanosuit,  and within Japanese manga series like Ghost in the Shell and Gantz — cited as the inspiration for Tokyo University experiments into optical camouflage. A similar cloaking device is found in Star Trek, however this example does not achieve active camouflage in the same way. Active camouflage is also used by the Spy class in Team Fortress 2. An invisibility device is used by the Helghast Scouts in the Killzone series, similar to the Predator camouflage.
The "thermoptic camouflage" of Ghost in the Shell offers concealment in both the visible light and infrared spectra. It flickers or ceases to function upon contact with water or high humidity, or a harsh physical impact.
In the video game "Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception", Leasath forces use optical camouflage on the Gleipnir bomber and the advanced Fenrir fighter aircraft.
In the video game series Halo, active camouflage is a power-up that can be obtained. Certain variants of the game's alien race of Elites use this as well and are almost invisible, appearing as faint disturbances in the air where armor bends significantly that are difficult to detect. this can also be used in multiplayer mode.
Active camouflage is also used by the spies in the multiplayer modes of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, making them harder to spot; however, it had a very limited power supply, making the suit only work for fifteen seconds, and contact with water will also short the system out.
The video game Red Faction: Guerilla has a stealth "backpack" which when used conceals the players character, except for a faint outline at close range. It can only remain active for a short while, before needing to recharge.
Active camouflage also appears in the video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution where it is called the Glass Shield Cloaking System, it also has a limited battery supply and when fully upgraded can only be used for seven seconds per energy bar, of which there are five. 
Active camouflage, referred to as a "ruthenium polymer coating", is available to a variety of upgradeable vehicles, suits of armor, and weapons in the tabletop role-playing game Shadowrun.
The trailer of the upcoming video game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier shows four Special Ops Soldiers taking out two tanks with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, before they turn on an active camouflage and vanish.
An additional fictional example of active camouflage in animals is the Gila-Munga, a race of extraterrestrial assassins appearing in Judge Dredd, a story serialized in the weekly British comic book anthology 2000 AD."

I added the Halo, Predator, Crysis and Deus Ex bits. A Scanner Darkly’s scramble suit isn't per se an active camouflage, as explained in chapter 2 of the book. Someone with a Shadowrun rulebook or the Judge Dredd's comic could add references for these part. Lunaramethyst (talk) 16:22, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Some fish (did the author mean in cephalopods?) can change color rapidly...  "including mimicking stationary patterns (propagated backwards) while swimming forwards." They can? Prove it! I can't find any trace of this in the literature but by all means put it back in the article with a suitable citation. 14:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Removing this here just in case you can think of a use for it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
"In 2008, the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced the creation of a metamaterial with a negative refractive index: light doesn't reflect or refract on it but bends around it. It currently works only at microwave frequencies but could work in the visible spectrum if further miniaturised."
And this specimen is really pure WP:CRYSTAL, so it's landed here too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
"The Boeing Bird of Prey, a technology demonstrator aircraft built by Boeing's Phantom Works between 1992 and 1999, "pioneered breakthrough low-observable technologies" which may have included active camouflage; the press release however mentions only "radar-evading design"."    (breathless excitement, huh?)

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first non-stub revision used "color"; this article is AmE [1] Red Slash 17:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

All the camouflage articles are in BE. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Active camouflage/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Kavyansh.Singh (talk · contribs) 07:06, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) at 15:36, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
Many thanks for taking this on. I'll respond promptly to any questions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:52, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


### GA criteria
### Comments
#### Prose
The article has three paragraphs in the lead. Just one would be sufficient, given the length of the article. Suggesting to merge the paragraphs
Done.
Lead: Animals achieve active camouflage both by color change and (among marine animals such as squid) by counter-illumination v. Prose: There are two mechanisms of active camouflage in animals: Counter-illumination, and color change — any reason for change in order or "Counter-illumination" and "color change"
Harmonised.
"a wide range of background textures" — the prose does not make clear where this quote comes from
Repeated ref for clarity.
WP:SANDWICHING in "In research" section

Lead: during World War II v. Prose: Second World War — consistency needen
Fixed.
of the United States of America — should be "of the United States"
Fixed.
OLEDs is never used again in the prose. Do we need to specify the acronym?
Gone.
Same with PAO
Gone.
counter-illumination is linked twice in the prose.

That is it! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2022 (UTC)


#### Images
Images can take ALT text
Added.
1 non-free image is appropriately licenced.
Noted.


#### References
Retrieved March 27, 2012 v. Retrieved 2017-01-09 — inconsistent date format
Fixed.
Ref#27 — 2006 is repeated twice
Fixed.
Ref#15 — bare url?
Formatted.
1046–8 — better would be "1046–1048"
Done.
That is it. Putting on hold. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Kavyansh.Singh – Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

There is still lot of inconsistencies in date formats in the references. Almost half are in "YYYY-MM-DD" format, while others are in "DD Month, YYYY" format. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
@Kavyansh.Singh: – Checked and formatted all of them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:08, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Great, promoting! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 19:22, 8 January 2022 (UTC)