Optical camouflage
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Optical camouflage is a kind of active camouflage which completely envelops the wearer and displays an image of the scene on the opposite side of the viewer projected onto it, so that the viewer can "see through" the wearer, rendering the wearer invisible. The idea appears in many fictional works, such as the William Gibson novel Neuromancer, where it is referred to as a "polychromatic suit." Also referred to as "thermoptic camouflage" or simply "thermoptics," this technology was popularlized by the sci-fi manga (and later anime) Ghost in the Shell. It has also been featured in the 2000 game Deus Ex, the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day, as well as a similar technology appearing in the Metal Gear Solid video game series and the latest installment of the Splinter Cell series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. There are also examples of superficially similar camouflages that are functionally different, such as the camouflage used by the creatures in the Predator movies. In that instance, light is bent around the camouflage. A third variant of this camouflage is present in Stone of Tears and Blood of the Fold, two novels by Terry Goodkind. In this case, the camouflage is magical in nature but the effect is the same.
Outside of fiction, the concept exists for now only in theory and in proof-of-concept prototypes, although many experts consider it technically feasible. In 2003, three professors at University of Tokyo — Susumu Tachi, Masahiko Inami and Naoki Kawakami — created a prototypical camouflage system in which a video camera takes a shot of the background and displays it on the cloth using an external projector. The same year Time magazine named it the coolest invention of 2003. [1] With the advent of flexible electronics such as a flexible liquid crystal display, that would allow the background image to be displayed on the material itself, it is believed that this form of optical camouflage would closely resemble its fictional counterparts.