http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/02/07/japan.invisible.ap/index.html
I don’t undestand how this works. Of course the article didn’t help much.
What you don’t see in the article is the camera behind the guy in the green jacket that is filming what’s behind him.
That camera’s output is then projected onto his reflective jacket. It’s not really very impressive IMHO.
"The photo was taken through a viewfinder that combines moving images from behind and in front of Obana, who was wearing a luminous jacket to create the transparent effect. "
That is, the ‘viewfinder’s’ field of vision including things behind him, but the presentation of the image was merged using the translucentcy of the jacket.
They’ve got two cameras. One’s pointing straight at the guy, and another is offset slightly so that it sees behind him. The two images are superimposed, with the “behind” image (people) going on top of the “in front” image (jacket).
Okay, now I’m confused.
Why are there two cameras and two images? It seems to me that they are just simply projecting the image of one camera (the one behind him) onto his reflective jacket.
What’s this about superimposed images?
Ok thats what I was thinking. But then they mention that surgeon bit, and I was stumped. They going to put a camera on the back of their fingers?
I’m somewhat confused too. What’s the difference between this and the old blue-screen technology? And what would I see if I were standing where the camera in front is?
The image is projected onto his jacket? That’s not nearly as cool as I thought it was at first. I imagined that the front of his jacket was made out of those flexible video monitors being developed, attached to a mini camera on his back. Now that would be cool.
Surgeon
A surgeon can see what light enters his eye, from where he stands. A surgeon who wears translucent gloves, and has cameras offset to the sides could see a merged image that makes it appear to HIM, that he is seeing through his fingers.
It’s like having eye’s in multiple locations, but seeing one image persepective.
The surgeon will not have anything that sees through stuff, but will have different angles of vision, mergeed for him/her that is presented like one image to him.
The surgeon will be wearing sometype of eyegear.
Looks like a hoax to me, and not a very elaborate one. Indeed, it sounds like nothing more than blue-screen technology (which has been around for a considerable number of decades), with the slight added twist that the two composite images are made at the same time. How this will eventually make pilots see through their cockpit floors is beyond me.
Jpeg Jones: it’s a superimposed image simply because the “behindview” is superimposed on the picture of the man in the jacket. I guess in “real life” (if an adequate device, say, a pair of monitors inserted in some sort of headwear, were used) there would be only one camera, but in this case they had to photograph the entire effect as well.
I guess that’s how they imagine the technology will work: they mount a camera on the outside of the plane, and give the pilot special ‘monitor glasses’ that show the image when he/she looks at the special reflective floor. I still think this would cause insurmountable technical difficulties (what happens when the pilots moves their heads?) and looking through your hands would IMHO still be completely impossible.
So to sum it up, I really have no idea. 
Wouldn’t an image of merged viewpoints look like some bizarre type of fisheye? I bet that would take some getting used to.
here is how it’ll make pilots ‘see’ through cockpit floors:
the is a camera that sees below the aircraft, and the floor has this translucent material with the external image displayed on it.
The pilot looks down and sees the outside image…but it’s on the floor where it looks like he would see it if the plane were invisible/translucent.
The pilot could very well look at a monitor on the ‘dashboard’, but that hardly has the same effect as putting the image on a spot, and in a way that makes it appear he is seeing through the floor.
The perspective makes all the difference.
Get it now?
quote: Wouldn’t an image of merged viewpoints look like some bizarre type of fisheye? I bet that would take some getting used to.
Look at cnn photo…does that look fisheye-ish?
That’s why the “merged viewpoint” idea doesn’t quite seem to hold. To give the effect as seen on the photo, there would have to be a camera directly behind the surgeon’s hands, which for obvious reasons would be impossible.
Unless of course I’m confused about what a “viewfinder” actually is. I don’t suppose that thing could actually ‘track’ images that are not directly in sight, though.
I understand the instance where the camera is on the other side of what we want to look through. I don’t understand where multiple angles (none of them from the other side of the ‘transparent’ object) are a composite. Unless there’s some type of software correction, it’s going to be some strange sort of panoramic.
I think I’m understanding all this two-camera talk now. It’s sort of a Ceci n’est pas une pipe thing.
The “second camera” is just the camera that was used to take a picture of the system, enabling us to see the guy and the projected image on his jacket.
Correct? Or am I still missing something?
Oh wait!
I guess there is no projection!
The output of the behind-camera is just composited into the output from the front-camera, blue-screen style. A viewer must look into the combined output to see the effect.
Christ in a cabbage roll, I think I’m losing my mind.
Well hopefully the enemy will have the special goggles, otherwise our troops won’t be transparent!
Reminds me of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, who could only see someone if they could see it back.
With the hilarious consequence that you could outwit it merely by wrapping a towel around your head.
Here are some videos on it.