Next-gen optical camouflage is busting out of defense labs and into the street.

US Defense Department press releases citing “adaptive,” “advanced,” and “active” camouflage suggest that the government is working on devices like this.

But to achieve true invisibility, optical camouflage must capture the background from all angles and display it from all perspectives simultaneously. This requires a minimum of six stereoscopic camera pairs, allowing the computer to model the surroundings and synthesize the scene from every point of view. To display this imagery, the fabric is covered with hyperpixels, each consisting of a 180 x 180 LED array behind a hemispherical lens.