World War I naval camouflage: an evaluation through image analysis

Much of the experiments leading to the development of World War I ship camouflage are conducted on an intuitive basis or based upon pseudo-scientific work. As a result of this rather empirical approach, possible effects of the naval camouflage schemes that were developed against the background of submarine warfare on the Atlantic remain unclear. These dazzle paint schemes are conceived to break up target contours and disclose the ship’s number, direction, speed and range – thus rendering range finding and targeting more difficult through primitive stereoscopic range finders and periscopes used at the time. Digital image analysis provides helpful tools to evaluate the effects of those dazzle painting techniques. When applying dazzle map textures to digital models and simulating atmospheric conditions, different paint schemes can be examined and evaluated under various circumstances. Shape recognition algorithms are able to draw some conclusions about different dazzle designs. This paper provides a brief overview of the origins, key designers and methodology of dazzle camouflage, followed by the setup of an experimental workflow for automated image analysis on rendered digital models. The test indicates some possible effects of the World War I paint schemes