Invisibility visualized: German team unveils new software for
rendering cloaked objects Scientists and curiosity seekers who
want to know what a partially or completely cloaked object would
look like in real life can now get their wish -- virtually. A
team of researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in
Germany has created a new visualization tool that can render a
room containing such an object, showing the visual effects of
such a cloaking mechanism and its imperfections. To illustrate
their new tool, the researchers have published an article in the
latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA)
open-access journal, with a series of full-color images (see
http://www.aph.uni-
karlsruhe.de/wegener/en/publications&year=2009, "Photorealistic
images of carpet cloaks"). These images show a museum nave with
a large bump in the reflecting floor covered by an invisibility
device known as the carpet cloak. They reveal that even as an
invisibility cloak hides the effect of the bump, the cloak it