the great invisible flash light, usinga strobing light that you can't see Options

[xizor]

using a process similar to animation , would it be possible and practical to have a strobing flashlight (putting out nano second long flashes of light, that you can't see.) run though a set of goggles or a cyber eye that will string the flashes of light together, (making each nano second flash of light image a bit longer so you can see it)?

i thought of this because of the WCB thing of not having fluorescent bulbs over milling machines. because the fluorescent light strobes, and at certain speeds the drill would look like it was standing still.

[GreatChicken]

....not really realistically possible.

1. Although you ARE only flashing for but a nanosecond, you haven't changed the actual wavelength of light, and so, for a nanosecond, you can actually see/be seen (yes, even with that short a duration of time, humans would know the difference, by the sudden appearance of a white blotch covering your field of vision as your eyes try to keep up with the flashes).

2. 'Dark' isn't an object; merely just the absence of light. The strobe concept doesn't work in reverse.

It's more of a good way to hurt your eyes than it is a useful tool.

[Entropy Kid]

I don't know how the flashing light is supposed to work, but I'm guessing the goggles would have a camera synchronized to the flash, and display an image of the surroundings when they're lit, by piecing the flashed frames together like an animation- so the eyes wouldn't have to adjust at all. The goggle part probably wouldn't be too hard to make, although the camera would need a very high frame rate or the animation might be too jerky to use.

[k1tsune]

Yeah.. I think the onlookers would notice. Yes, humans only get images at a certain "frame rate", but those differ from person to person, and they aren't all going to be timed at the same time... It's late. I'm not making sense.
I, for instance, have a high visual "frame rate" and if I'm not focusing hard, I see tv and computer screens flicker. It's kind of annoying..

-Alex, half asleep

[Nikoli]

The US military has a new set of NVG that has a built in strobe on the front. Tere is a shutter that operates at teh same speed, light kicks on, shutter clicks closed, soldier never sees the light and still has normal vision. Very cool concept, so long as all the soldier staty synch'ed and the enemy never gets ahold of a set.

[Darkest Angel]

Do the US Military R&D people have a battery fetish or something? The most electronic things you'd ever want to carry in combat are a small flashlight (no bigger than powered by 2 AA cells) a pair of NVGs, and if you're desperate a radio transceiver and GPS, even those two would probably be split between the squad and only used sparingly.

What you want to do sounds a lot easier and cheaper if you get some thermographic goggles (not overlain with normal vision) and a flashpak strapped to your front, they get the glare modifiers, you don't. Same can be done by switching 'normal' off on your cybereyes, or by closing your eyes and using astral vision only.

[Nikoli]

Actually, that is a current military item. not an SR item. also, current military NVG tech uses thermo and luminesence magnification overlaid to provide a VERY crisp and difficult to interfere with system. these are not available to the gen. pop just yet as it is a huge advancement since the previous generation og NVG. adding a strobe and timed shutter doesn't use that much battery life, considering how short combat is usually, this can shorten it greatly.

[Smiley]

Hell, just use what actually exists now. NVGs with an IR flashlight that normal people without the goggles can't see but that you can. Or get the IR put into some cybereyes and walk around with an IR filter on your flashlight.

[BitBasher]

or get the IR eyelights and keep it all in the cybereye.

[xizor]

yes i do know that thermo gogles are a different way to do this.
i will be doing some research about this and posting the results in a week or so.
thank you for the response