Camo

Camouflaging is used throughout nature as a means of protection for prey. Most animals from land, sea and air employ a type of camouflage classified as countershading.

Nature's Camouflage

Countershading, or Thayer's Law, is a type of camouflage in which an animal's pigmentation is darker dorsally (on top of the animal) than on bottom. In essence, natural distribution of light on objects that are lit from above will cause unequal reflection of light on a solid body of uniform color. This provides predators with visual cues to a prey's shape and projection. Countershading reduces the ease of detection of prey by counterbalancing the effects of shadowing on top and bottom of the animal causing a type of visual confusion to predators.

Countershading is observed in a large variety of animals such as Whitetails, Pronghorn Antelope, squirrels and birds. Militaries across the globe have used countershading on their aircrafts and ships to make them less visible at moderate to long distances.

The "Black Blob" Effect

For years, hunters have ventured into the woods donning their favorite camo to elude the weary eyes of their prey. From early military camo to today's photo-realistic patterns, a hunter's arsenal has been limited to designs that have one overall tonal palette. These patterns contain small areas of dark and light clustered in close proximity allowing for short-distance realism, but suffer at medium to long distances.

Using traditional camo can create a situation that many hunters have loosely termed the "black blob" effect. The "black blob" effect occurs when the small pockets of light and dark details merge at distances beyond several yards. These colors than visually average out and become the large, unnatural mass that the human body creates when viewed from longer distances. This large mass can cause deer and other big game to become highly alerted to a hunter's position or worse yet, to flee.

If the principles of countershading and natural camouflaging are obvious, why aren't these rules applied to products that we use today? That is the question that our engineers asked. We set out to create a camo pattern with superior stealth at all distances...and we created Vertigo.