Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahartmetz | Hacker News Reader

The connection between camouflage and then-current art styles is also interesting. Dazzle camouflage seems quite related to expressionism (which I know mostly from film, where it's stark and unsettling like the camouflage), and the still-current pixel camo is related to, well, "computers are cool" and pixel art.

View on HN

Strange take. Pixelated camouflage is and was an attempt to make a scale invariant camouflage (works at near and far distances) by encoding patterns at multiple spatial frequencies. It's far from "computers are cool" or pixel art.

There are always reasons (rationalizations) why it had to be exactly like that. Like so many acronyms that are really backronyms. Or, if you are familiar with IT, why a certain technology is "needed" in a product.

I'm not saying that these camo patterns don't work, but the particulars (e.g. why it had to be rectangular pixels, not hexagons or nature-inspired fractals) are often connected to fashions. My personal opinion is that dazzle camo looks cool, by the way ;)

Camo has been and continues to be very well studied. It’s actually incredible how well the pixel camo works compared to everything else. If there were anything better they would be using it

Conceivably this would be done better with more resolution and pixelated patterns are also not found in nature. Keep in mind this rolled out in an era where army recruiting was investing heavily in video games and other favorable media in effort to connect with a new generation of youth. High tech seeming uniforms are also for the morale of the soldier as much as they are for function.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com