Digital Camo vs. Eotech?

[Mac5.56]

Pardon my very basic knowledge on this subject but I had a thought the other day:

A friend in the military recently explained to me the reasoning for the digital patterns of camo that are being fielded by our military. As someone that works with digital imagery I was always curious why they were using the new patterns and I knew there had to be a reason for it. The fact that the digital pattern can break up various digitally based systems (the example given was night vision) makes total sense, and was one of those "duh" moments when he explained it.

Anyway, due to the nature of how the Eotech projects the image onto the screen via a prism, and the reticle appears pixelated to the user, I was wondering what effect these new digital patterns would have on an Eotech optic. If a target is prone, and at 100 yards in this camo is it more difficult to acquire the target with an Eotech then a Non-Holographic red dot?

[Parabellum9x19mm]

Anyway, due to the nature of how the Eotech projects the image onto the screen via a prism, and the reticle appears pixelated to the user

i know the ACOG uses a prism. i know the Burris AR-332 uses a prism. i know the Leupold Prismatic uses a prism (obviously).

does the EO use a prism? i'd never heard that before. where did you hear that? i'm not saying its not true. i'm just saying that if it does indeed use a prism, that its news to me.

If a target is prone, and at 100 yards in this camo is it more difficult to acquire the target with an Eotech then a Non-Holographic red dot?

why would it make any difference what kind of red dot sight you are using?

you can either see your target or you cant.

a target doesn't look any different if you're aiming with an EO, Aimpoint or a Barska

[Mac5.56]

I heard about the prism somewhere on this site, a recent thread regarding Eotech. I may be wrong though.

As for "seeing" the target. That's the point, you may actually not be able to see as well based on the way that the image is transmitted to the reticle. I'm not saying it happens with Eotech, but what I am thinking about is the difference between a digital zoom, and one done with a camera lens.

[Parabellum9x19mm]

I heard about the prism somewhere on this site, a recent thread regarding Eotech. I may be wrong though.

As for "seeing" the target. That's the point, you may actually not be able to see as well based on the way that the image is transmitted to the reticle. I'm not saying it happens with Eotech, but what I am thinking about is the difference between a digital zoom, and one done with a camera lens.

you're comparing apples and anvils here.


with a red dot sight an "image" isn't "transmitted to a reticule", as you describe. the reticule is simply projected onto a piece of glass.


if your red dot sight is turned off, you still see the exact same thing as you would see if your red dot sight was turned on (minus the reticule, of course). there is no image sensor, no digital signal processing, there's not any hocus pocus like that.

in terms of making a comparison to digital zoom and optical zoom, yeah i'm really not sure i see the correlation here.

digital cameras have image sensors. weapon optics do not. they might in the future when digital night vision gets better or when we have plasma rifles, but as of right now? nope.

digital zoom is done by cropping the center of the image in the same aspect ratio as the original image, the cropped image is then interpolated with the same pixel dimensions as the original image.

there is nothing analogous to any of this stuff in a red dot sight.

[Mac5.56]

Fair enough, that's why I posted.

So then here's a question: Why the constant complaint (and I have seen it too when I have looked through Eotechs), of a pixellated or "blurry" image. There is obviously some form of projection going on here. What causes the illusion?

As for the digital zoom, thanks for the lesson...

[Parabellum9x19mm]

it looks pixelated because it uses a laser to project the image, in contrast to an Aimpoint, which uses a LED.

i don't really mind the pixelated look...but i don't mind that sometimes it appears that my Aimpoints dot aren't perfectly round.

people who complain about that stuff spend too much time looking thru their optic in their living-room, instead of looking downrange thru it

[RogerinTPA]

No effect at all. You are simply looking though glass with a digital reticle projected on it. Digital camouflage (any camouflage) is designed to try to fool the human eye as to distort the object being viewed, at a distance, to be unrecognizable as to the true shape of the object being viewed. Movement is the first thing the human eye will detect, so the second the object moves, the jig is up.

As for the blurriness and pixelation, another issue is a person visual acuity. A persons vision may be going bad and since they have adjusted to it through variations of squinting, they have not detected their individual vision situation until looking though the sight. Example, when I was an NVG instructor pilot at the Army's flight school, occasionally, we would get students who could not see or got extreme irritation when viewing the blue green spectrum of light at night, which is what the NVGs or NODS project. The got blurred vision and headaches and never knew the condition existed, until that portion of flight school. Another example, after landing at night recently, I left my prescription glasses setting on the center console of my aircraft. The lead mechanic found them. He put them on to try them out, and couldn't believe the clarity. He realized he needed to get his eyes check after compensating for his blurriness for years.

[RAM Engineer]

Fair enough, that's why I posted.

So then here's a question: Why the constant complaint (and I have seen it too when I have looked through Eotechs), of a pixellated or "blurry" image. There is obviously some form of projection going on here. What causes the illusion?

As for the digital zoom, thanks for the lesson...

The "pixelation" is the grain of the holographic reticle. Just like film stock has a "grain" to it, so do holograms. Look at any hologram sticker from a bubblegum machine and you'll see it has a graininess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speckle...ctive_speckles

See the above entry.

[RAM Engineer]

people who complain about that stuff spend too much time looking thru their optic in their living-room, instead of looking downrange thru it

I heard a good quote from a AH-64 Standardization IP once, regarding the symbology in the IHADSS: "It's like looking outside through a screen door. You want to look through the door, not at it."