Multi-scale camouflage

The root of the modern multi-scale camouflage patterns can be traced back to 1930s experiments in Europe for the German and Soviet armies.

Nature itself is very often fractal, where plants and rock formations exhibit similar patterns across several magnitudes of scale.

The idea behind multi-scale patterns is both to mimic the self-similarity of nature, and also to offer scale invariant or so-called fractal camouflage.

The first printed camouflage pattern was the 1929 Italian telo mimetico, which used irregular areas of three colours at a single scale.

[13][14] Pixel-like shapes pre-date computer-aided design by many years, already being used in Soviet Union experiments with camouflage patterns, such as "TTsMKK"[b] developed in 1944 or 1945.

The pattern uses areas of olive green, sand, and black running together in broken patches at a range of scales.

Fractal-like patterns work because the human visual system efficiently discriminates images that have different fractal dimension or other second-order statistics like Fourier spatial amplitude spectra; objects simply appear to pop out from the background.

[17] Timothy O'Neill helped the Marine Corps to develop first a digital pattern for vehicles, then fabric for uniforms, which had two colour schemes, one designed for woodland, one for desert.

The Canadian Forces were the first army to issue pixellated digital multi-scale camouflage for all units with their disruptively patterned CADPAT , issued in 2002, shown here in its 'Temperate Woodland' variant.
The Universal Camouflage Pattern provided insufficient contrast to disrupt a soldier's outline effectively, appearing at a moderate distance as a single colour.
Operational Camouflage Pattern , a disruptive but non-pixellated pattern, replaced the Universal Camouflage Pattern beginning in 2015.
Italian Telo mimetico , first used in 1929
Waffen-SS 1944 Erbsenmuster (pea-dot pattern) combines large and small scale patterns.
Patterns in nature , like the foliage of this Buxus sempervirens bush, are often broken into visual elements with small and large scales, such as branches and leaves.