29-07-2017, 12:32 PM
Optical camouflage offers an experience similar to the Harry Potter invisibility cloak, but its use requires a somewhat complicated arrangement. First, the person who wants to be invisible (let's call him Harry) a garment that looks like a raincoat with a hood. The garment is made of a special material that we will examine more closely in a moment.
Then an observer (let's call him Professor Snape) is in front of Harry in a specific place. In that place, instead of seeing Harry wearing a hooded raincoat, Snape sees through the cloak, making Harry appear invisible. The picture above shows what Snape would see. What if Snape stepped to the side and saw Harry from a slightly different place? He would simply see the magician with a silver garment. They would be frantic and arrested. Lucky for Harry, his fictional cape offers 360 degree protection.
Optical camouflage does not work by magic. It works by leveraging something called augmented reality technology, a type of technology first started in the 1960s by Ivan Sutherland and his students at Harvard University and the University of Utah. You can read more about augmented reality in How Augmented Reality Works, but a brief recap will be helpful here.
Augmented reality systems add computer-generated information to a user's sensory perceptions. Imagine, for example, that you are walking towards the city street. When looking at sites along the way, the additional information seems to improve and enrich your normal view. Maybe they are the specials of the day in a restaurant or the schedules in a theater or the bus schedule in the station. What is critical to understand is that reality is not the same as virtual reality. While virtual reality seeks to replace the world, augmented reality simply seeks to complement it with additional and useful content. Think of it as a heads-up (HUD) for everyday life.