Recording spectrophotometer aids in deceiving enemy observers
✍ Scribed by R.H.O.
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1944
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 67 KB
- Volume
- 237
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Recording Spectrophotometer Aids in Deceiving Enemy Observers.-General Electric's recording spectrophotometer is playing a vital role in helping our fighting forces to deceive enemy observers. The instrument is being used to match camouflage colors so they cannot be detected by the enemy's infrared cameras.
Camouflaging, an art which depends on the use of color, suffered a major set back when the infrared camera was developed. Infrared light, which is not visible to the human eye, can be photographed on a special film. Thus, two objects which, to the eye, have the same color, may photograph differently with the special film, due to different amounts of infrared received from them. This means that the camouflage artist cannot judge from the appearance of a color how it will look to the infrared camera.
But the G.-E. spectrophotometer, an electronic machine, has now come to the aid of the camouflager. It gives him a measure of color--both visible and invisible--which puts him on an equal footing with the infrared'camera. For by determining the amount of light of infrared wave-lengths that is reflected by any paint or other material he wants to use, he can tell what effect that material or color will have on the plate of the infrared camera.
The spectrophotometer is indispensable in the visible range, because it insures perfect matching of colors under all conditions. Colors which appear to the eye to be perfectly matched under One light may actually be mismatched under another light. But matches made with the spectrophotometer are identical under all lighting conditions. Hence for many manufacturing processes where extremely accurate color matching is required, such as in making textiIes, dyes, and paints, the spectrophotometer is a valuable aid. R. H. O.