A video on retroreflectors

Quick note from someone who worked as a surveyor for a whole 3 days before COVID caused my responsibilities to change - most of your surveying stock footage was of GPS-based surveying.

Damn. I didn't expect the cat :D

Tobias Faller

Oooh so THAT'S why headlights are supposed to be put on in the rain. I don't drive, but it's one of the few driving rules I know because my mum rants about it a lot when I'm in a car with her. & it happens to be raining.

Was not expecting to see one of Geoff's videos mentioned here! Also, that IS a cat! :-D

DeepestBlue

In true Technology Connections form, the cat purchase turned out to have useful prop value! Maybe we'll see an entire video on how cats work? "Through the magic of buying two cats..." [Pulls a very worried-looking spare cat out from under the table]

Jeff Jetton

Random thought: retroreflectors *are* the one case that demonstrates the ancient theory that seeing was light shooting out of the eyes and bouncing back off objects! (Because they work best with the light source and the seeing device being as close as possible to each other, so why not the same place...) :-) Ewen

Ewen McNeill

And I guess the neat thing there is that the retroreflection is both for the purpose of projecting light back to the viewer *and* for preventing other viewers at from seeing projections, since the system lets multiple people use the same retroreflector table.

If you haven't heard of it, there's a product (that isn't fully out yet) that uses retroreflectors to essentially project an image back into the viewer's eyes for an augmented reality type thing called Tilt Five https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jse-GwkcYgI

I think the brainworm you referred to is known as platooning, where multiple trucks can join together and be guided by the lead truck. There's lots of companies working on autonomous platooning, but I'm not sure of any using retroreflective identifiers. One reason I'd guess is that they'd need to handle getting cut off by a car, and that would break the computer vision (though they probably could use the retroreflectors on any car's rear). Mostly it's just close range wireless communication with the leader issuing orders.

Steve Streza

Woah! Metric system shout-out! Rare to see an American use it exclusively without bringing any attention to it! Good job at normalizing! Also, I've always wanted to commend you on your outro/bloopers patron scrolling list. Really slick how you integrated the rolling list while interesting content is running. I'm sure you have longer lasting patronage as a result. Keep the good stuff coming! Thanks for the video.

Örn Arnarson

Alec, the term you are looking for at the end is a retroreflective fiducial, googling that yields some research papers with photos of what they look like :) You can also find them in film vfx upon occasion

Pup Atlas!~

Your face in that mirror made my wife come into here to find out why I was laughing so loud all by myself.

Alan Ricks

One side was a laser eye, the other side was a simple reflector with the honeycomb look. They needed to be cleaned sometimes soda blocked their reflection.

Alan Ricks

Another use for these type of reflectors: when I worked in a soda factory all the depacking, filling, packing, and shipping machines had laser eyes on them to count products, the timing of sequences, and lastly for human safety. Most machines would shut off if you broke the line of laser to its reflector while it was running.

Alan Ricks

It's cool to understand the science behind the signs. I work as a line striper, (we paint roads and install the reflectors on the road surface) for painting on the roads, we put glass beads down on top of the paint or thermoplastic to help reflect the light back.

Graham Burgdorf

There was one use that I thought was clever but never quite caught on. Some 80's volvos had a white retroreflector integrated into the headlights. So if a headlight went out, oncoming drivers could still perceive that there was a headlight-like-entity on that side of the car and properly judge the width and lane placement, not confuse it with a motorcycle.

nobody

Great video! One of the niftiest uses of retroreflectors I've seen is from a company called "Reflecmedia". They've got a scotchlite-like material that you can buy as a curtain or as a pop-up backdrop. When coupled with a small green LED ring light mounted around a camera lens, you get a perfect green screen in pretty much any lighting condition without any spill.

Dominic Mulligan

Thanks for the link. "Motorway Studs" is a risky search term

Yagsti

And the dest of the ray to you!

Virak

They guard you from falling off the edge of the road? I've never head the term "guide rails" applied to what you see on roads before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_barrier

Technology Connections

They are not guard rails. They don't guard you from anything. The correct term is "guide rails." they guide you, they do not guard you.

Rocco Rizzo

The red for the wrong direction on freeways is a nice touch. UK motorways adopt a multicoloured approach to reflector colours: https://www.drivingtesttips.biz/motorway-studs.html

Martin Porcheron

My turn signals even light up road signs that are far away from me. And now that I think about it, that's more impressive than when headlights do it, since the turn signal's light isn't focused in a beam.

Michael Dunn

LOL, I didn't realize I had my device muted and was all "WTF is wrong with this thing" when it was all black at the beginning.

Retro Game Club podcast retrogameclub.net

I used to have some jeans with retroreflective chevrons printed on the inside of the legs - so when you went cycling, you could turn them up, avoid getting chain oil on the outside, and be more visible at night.

Martin Deutsch

Another great episode of Technology Connectcats, or Catnections or whatever. Cute kitty. And no, I don't expect you to apologize for "copy cats". LOL

Don Eitner

Did you know that spider eyes are also retroreflective? I found that out by accident when hiking at night. And I'm a bit of an arachnophobe. Brrr.

Ivan Habunek

I can’t tell you how many people I see without tail lights on at way past dark. And almost all of them are driving old cars that definitely don’t have always-illuminated instrument clusters! How do you not know you don’t have your headlights on???? YOU CAN’T SEE YOUR DASHBOARD!!!!!

Sean Hearrell

The camera panning over the mirror with your reflection had me lolling so hard that I had to replay it and avert my gaze so that I could hear the dialog. Interesting topic plus the Grand Debut of Reed make this one special.

Mark Hesse

The face in the mirror - mesmerising

Fred Leckie

The face in the mirror - excellent

Professor Kroog

I have to reflect on this one

Erwin Bierhof

"This is a cat" 😻 Hello Reed! Interesting, never thought about the cubical mirror, thanks a lot!

MrHammond

Oh, right, and thanks for more cat 😻

ErdTirdMans

I've seen some garage door openers actually use a retroreflector for their safety beam, but oddly enough they're for ones that deal with larger commercial buildings' doors.

Gunplumber

This is such a quintessential Technology Connections video. I love it. And the mirror smile had me dying laughing

ErdTirdMans

If you've ever walked past fresh road markings and noticed rainbows in white dust, those are retroreflector beads that didn't get embedded in the paint.

Kevin Reid

Thanks for this. Another one of those things you see every day, and thought you had a clue, until you broke it all down like no one else could!

On Ice Perspectives

The start of this reminds me of when I worked in Sweden. I was living in a house about an hour's drive from the town we were working in. At night in winter, unless the moon was out, it was just...black. Like not being able to see a tree 1" in front of your face black (which one of the guys I was working with found out...the painful way). Contrast with summer when you could get up at 2am and it be basically daylight.

Chris Crowther