Camouflage

This is a very cool post (or I like it very much).

Camouflage is always known to be the army's uniform. So I wondered why it works. Well here is a post on how it work and of course why it works.

First of all there are 2 types of camouflage.

1. Disruptive camouflage
2. Mimetic camouflage

I am going to talk about each one of these types in detail.

Camouflage has been there since the earth has been created. But it has became a topic of interest in the 18th century Darwin studied camouflage in animals. After that camouflage was used in WWI and of course WWII.

I told you that there are 2 types of camouflage disruptive camouflage and mimetic camouflage.

Disruptive Camouflage is all about ""breaking up outline"". This method is used mostly. It works by changing the outline of an object to tell a persons brain he is not looking at what is really there. One simple type of disruptive camouflage in the animal world is counter-shading, which defeats a predator's ability to identify prey by its shape. In counter-shading, the upper parts of an animal are dark and its lower parts are light. This reverses the normal distribution of light on objects, which are usually lit from above. The predator's eye is drawn to the lighter areas and, since the brain interprets the contrast between light and dark as a natural boundary, it is discouraged from 'putting together' the two areas and perceiving a single object. Another type of Disruptive Camouflage is "boundary disruption". This is what army uniforms and zebras have in common. This type makes it harder for the brain to see the object as a separate piece from the background. When a herd of zebras stand close together it is a lot harder for even us humans who have colour vision to separate the group of zebras into individuals animals.

Ok this is a bit too complicated to understand. So let me go back to how human perceive the environment. Since Camouflage has everything to do with vision we must first understand how vision works. There are 2 types of vision "focal vision" and "ambient vision"

Ambient vision is also know as peripheral vision. Ambient vision functions as the main system to retain orientation in a 3D space and it depends on preconscious visual input. This means you can walk and read a book while walking strait and without bumping into stuff. If you've ever been startled by a movement seen 'out of the corner of your eye', then you've experienced this aspect of human visual perception. Ambient vision doesn't work by colour, but by movement and contrast. The khaki uniforms of the army lower the contrast between the soldier and the background. This counter the ambient vision system.

This is very cool so far, but if you look at the soldier with the khaki uniform at plain sight you will see him clearly whatever the background. This is because colour plays a major role in focal vision. One thing your brain is always looking for, when analysing visual information, is continuity. For example, you tend to recognise something as a single object if it has a single, continuous colour; so, a person is much more likely to 'stand out' from their background and be recognised as a human being if they are wearing a single, solid colour than they are if they are wearing a variety of colours.


Ok lets get back to Disruptive Camouflage. Disruptive Camouflage works by implementing a lot of different colours and patterns. So this type of camouflage is trying to fool the focal vision system. Disruptive Camouflage also fools the ambient vision a bit. To do this the army make their uniforms different colour shades depending on the environment. So if the colour are the same as the environmental colours it fools the ambient vision too.
This is a good example of Disruptive Camouflage - go to this link

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p112/GregLuvDogs/Camo.jpg


Mimetic camouflage

This is a very very simple type of camouflage and yet very very difficult to implement. This works by making yourself look like another object. No fooling the vision systems here. The camouflaged object simply looks like something else that belong there so you don't notice it. The word mimetic is a Greek word for "imitator". ""Blend with the environment"" this is the golden rule here. There is a good example- go to this link

http://www.snipercountry.com/photogallery/Puci_Cecchino_02.jpg

There is a sniper in the middle next to the tree. He look exactly like the plants and leave on the tree. This type of camouflage is also the most effective but takes time to set-up and are completely environmentally dependant.