Personal 'invisibility shield' goes on sale, starting under $70 | Hacker News Reader

Personal 'invisibility shield' goes on sale, starting under $70

newatlas.com

77 pointsBrajeshwar67 comments

The article casually mentions that horizontal lines in the background help sell the illusion.

So I watched the video for examples. Every single shot is in front of something with prominent horizontal lines and almost no vertical detail at all: Stairs, horizons, parking lot lines (carefully aligned to be horizontal), walls painted with horizontal stripes.

Does anyone have videos showing what this thing looks like in front a pattern that isn’t cherry picked to have carefully oriented horizontal lines?

EDIT: This is just a lenticular sheet. If you search for lenticular sheet images, there are many examples of how it looks with non-horizontal patterns: Heavily blurred. It’s not an invisibility shield in a general sense, it just diffuses horizontally. Under carefully curated conditions you can get a blurry square with horizontal lines from the background, but everything else is just a blur.

Oh, and you don’t need to pay Kickstarter prices. Just order a lenticular sheet, which is readily available.

Another bit of information that seems intentionally left out is the view from the other side. What is the perspective from hidden objects?

They don't go into too much detail, but I think scotty79 is right and it looks the same.

> Potential backers should take note, however, that users can't clearly see their surroundings through the Shield – they have to peek around it.

Same

I got a lenticular sheet off ebay and it sucked, could see everything behind it. They must use a different type than the normal ones

The effect is going to be highly dependent on the physical dimensions of the lines, and the plastic used. The spacing between the lines is going to influence the optical behavior along with the diffractive/refractive properties of the chosen plastic.

I guess yeah, can't find any info out there on what specifics to search for.

The panels also look slightly curved when deployed. I bet this also influences its capabilities.

> EDIT: This is just a lenticular sheet.

If it's done right, it'll be more like a fresnel lens.

I feel like this would be very useful in architecture, hiding things like heat pumps without disguising the structure behind by erecting barriers and that sort of thing. Or at events disguising rigging for lighting and whatnot. In my day to day life I rarely need to hide, but I can see lots of applications where hiding fixed objects without disrupting the scenery is a benefit.

> but I can see lots of applications where hiding fixed objects without disrupting the scenery is a benefit.

Don’t get too excited: It only diffuses light horizontally, so if the scenery consists of anything other than horizontal lines or the viewers aren’t exactly viewing at the right angle, it’s not going to be much of an illusion. More of a blurry horizontal averaging of what’s behind it.

Yes I get it but it’s also like an adaptive camouflage- while it’s not perfect it is a lot better than a bunch of rigging and wires.

You can also turn it 90 degrees to hide horizontal details in front of vertical ones

interesting

Okay? So use it to hide stuff with scenery featuring horizontal lines. Why are you looking for so many reasons for it to fail?

If you’re building the scenery to custom specifications, why not just put the scenery in front of the thing you’re trying to hide?

It also doesn’t work off angle, won’t look good when dirty, will weather poorly, and so on.

It’s not a realistic solution for hiding things outdoors long term. It’s a party trick.

I'd love to use this for windows in a downtown office. You can get ambient light and a general sense of the outside atmosphere, but with the added benefit of privacy and seeing fewer people walking by.

Isn’t that a problem that’s already solved by one way mirrors? Light can still come in, you can see from the inside out but people on the outside can’t look inside.

Added bonus of seeing some hilarious faces because some people treat those as normal mirrors and don’t realize there are people on the other side.

It’s less about people seeing you - does it actually matter? It’s about seeing people see you. That can feel uncomfortable even it has no consequence that they saw you. By giving you a perception of the scene without people it can feel more comfortable than a blank wall or people walking past.

They don't work if hidden side is brighter than the public side. So not at night.

Frosted window film is much cheaper and easier.

If you want to get fancy, you can layer the frosted film over variably tinting film and it'll regulate the light coming in.

I wonder what's the light transmission of frosted film vs lenticular film.

Isn't this what frosted windows are for?

It would be excellent in stage design as well. I can also picture touring bands buying up three or four of these things to hide (obscure might be a better word) their kluges during setup.

There could be so many uses for this!

- Art installations

- Cell phone towers

- Building materials

- Clothing / fashion

- Stage and Halloween costumes

- Marketing and brand displays

- Children and pet toys

- Cabling

- Tools for naturalist observation

- Furniture and household art pieces

- Hiding large waste receptacles and other visual nuisances

i imagine it's not the best option for permanent fixtures compared to barriers. if it works well in a semicircle or hemispherical shape for viewers along at different angles than it might be cheaper. mass producing it also may make it easier and cheaper than painting something one-off to match a static background. agree completely on the value for anything temporary.

Someone’s gonna put one of these over a parking lot bollard.

The kickstarter is basically a scam. The "invisibility shield" is a sheet of lenticular plastic which you can already buy on Alibaba.

This lenticular over at Alibaba [1] actually has a pretty good demo of some of the weaknesses of the technique. The brick photo especially shows how certain textures in the background look very smeared and obvious.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/DIY-Invisibility-Shee...

Tried it. Got there sheet on ebay and it sucked. Nothing like the pictures, could see my hand behind it but just blurry

Pretty close to the kickstarter: https://www.amazon.com/Lenticular-Sheet-x13-100LPI-Pack/dp/B...

I had no idea it could do this.

I want to vote with my dollars so that more research and productization happens. This should continue to get lots of dollars.

Imagine if this market keeps growing and research keeps happening.

I would have loved to have had this as a kid.

> I want to vote with my dollars so that more research and productization happens.

Given the prices involved and the technology already existing, I am doubtful that the profit here will go towards further research.

I guess this wouldn’t work in any irregular environment; a forest, a city, indoors and most other locations seem out of the question.

The promo video presents it in uniform environments only, like a beach, in front of a horizontal rail, or a building with a large pattern.

Something that I kind of had a recollection of applying here is that it kind of only works by blurring things horizontally. Having looked at all the pictures and watched the video, I'm fairly confident that this is the case; they never actually said, but literally every single time they show it is conveniently against a horizontally striped background. That's not to say it's not useful, just that there are certain caveats to what it can hide in front of. Of course, that's assuming that my understanding is correct, which I don't know how to verify.

Maybe a parking lot with cars driving around isn't the best place to demo this product.

These plastic lenses pop up on youtube every couple of years, it would be a miracle of advertising if this guy manages to sell any.

really cool ! I remember when these were first demoed and wouldn't have guessed they'd be available at what seems like a reasonable price to me, even without having a need for one. Would like to see an image of what the person standing behind it can see through it. Is it opaque, transparent, or distorted in the other direction ?

The article says they have to look around it - the subject cannot see through the shield.

Couldn't you sell a solid white panel and call it an invisibility shield?

good for augmenting riot shields; crime suppression/police intelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAriX1ebx3I [VIDEO]

https://www.amazon.com/Invisibility-Shield-Lenticular-Transp...

How on earth could this be used for "crime suppression"?

one of the most drudgey of beat cop assignments, is to hide in the bushes, where people are known to use drugs, or engage in crimes, then bust them red handed. a small observation closet of these panels would assist that, and make "crime nests" a hostile place to use or engage the chattels of crime.

so the crime goes away [elsewhere]

Does this actually happen or is this just crime show fantasy?

yes this actually happens.

Can anyone think of an actual usage case...outside of combat I guess

Any case where camouflage is currently used. Combat is the big one, but maybe also hunting. Hiding anything "ugly" in a nice environment: e.g. trash bins or outdoor equipment.

Someone else suggested street level windows - lets some light in but obscures views of people and prevents anyone outside from seeing in at all.

Hiding bins / meters / smallish "undesirable" stuff outside the house if you've got a fancy setting could make a fair bit of sense, yea. It'd help keep things picturesque from a distance.

Or put a painted board up in front of it, which will probably look better in most cases, and less like a digital privacy blur.

Tell me you've never hunted or know anything about combat without telling me.

This would be completely useless for camoflauge as it fails in the very first most basic point of camoflauge, which is to conceal the sillouhette. These things would stick out like a sore thumb in any scenario like that.

Yea, a piece of card board works better.

That was pretty much my exact response.

The advertisement's all touchy feely, with people holding hands in the sunset, yet it's difficult to look at this without seeing a sniper's nest.

Applications? ... military. The immediate list was so long it was disturbing, not listed mostly for "don't give em ideas".

The article lists several:

> applications of the original Invisibility Shield have included hiding contestants on a Korean dating show, staying unseen when playing paintball, performing stage magic, hiding small items on an office desk for entertainment purposes, and observing wildlife.

Disguise utility boxes, cell towers, etc?

…If the sheet flexes so you bounce right off it, the cyclist, bird, and aircraft crashes in such a case might not be that bad, I guess…

Wildlife photography, field science? You only need to cut a hole in it big enough for a couple sensor apertures.

Going for a pee!

Criminals are gonna love this.

that's what I thought haha

A useful tool for ninjas

DoctorWadeWilsonButWhy.gif

Terrible timing considering what day Monday is.

Also not very useful for tomorrow, transgender day of visibility

Easter Monday?

'Where could it be used for?' They ask. Well their observing wildlife is nice, but the real market it observing your enemy in the Ukraine frontlines.

> Well their observing wildlife is nice

I'd love to use an invisibility wall to do that. There is a caveat in some cases though. Birds can die by colliding with windows.

Maybe, a lot of optical trickery like this isn't universal, but tuned to our eyes. I wonder what this looks like with a polarization filter.

I wonder how much these things weigh. Sadly the first thing that my mind wondered is if someone could attach it to the bottom of a drone. Like the ones the Ukranians are using to hit Russian oil refineries. A lot of those are being shot down by regular soldiers with rifles looking up into the sky.

My guess is the invisibility effect only works at very specific distances and it weighs far too much.

You would need to consider altered flight characteristics and maybe reduced flight range with the addition. Might act as a sail and just drag any drone around enough as to render it useless. Also, what would a 4ft flying panel look like on radar.

>I wonder how much these things weigh.

Looks like mostly plexiglass. I'd gues 10-15kg for the big one

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