[Namikaze]

So as some of you know, my wife is having a baby.  This means that I've gotten lots of experience with modern ultrasound machines recently.  Thing is - I can't identify crap on those monitors.  Obviously, ultrasound technology has advanced to a suitable point in the Shadowrun timeline that it can be used reliably as a visualization method.

Here's what I want to know:

• What does ultrasonic vision look like?
• What does silence look like to ultrasonic vision?
• What does noise look like to ultrasonic vision?
• Can it work in a vacuum?

This is more of a curiosity for fluff reasons than anything else.  I think the rules are fine - that's why I'm putting this in the Gear section of the forums instead of the Rules section.  I've been trying to answer these questions for myself, and the only thing I can come up with is a maybe-answer to the first question.  The closest I've ever been able to figure, ultrasonic vision is like the Bat-Sonar Lenses used in the Dark Knight film.

[Kincaid]

Hah!  Oddly enough, my wife is due in 10 days, so I've been spending a lot of time looking at ultrasound images myself.

Since we're talking about 2075, I assume that ultrasounds produce crisper 3D images than what you'll see with current 3D ultrasound.  It's mono-chromatic, but you should be able to reliably distinguish between faces, etc.  "Ultrasound 3D" and "3D mapping robot" should provide some Google images to give you a sense of what you see and what you don't see.

Silence is a dead zone.  If it's a giant dome in the middle of a room, it might be a dead giveaway.  If the mage is using metamagic to keep the spell tight to his body and he's tucked against something, it would be much harder to distinguish.

For my own sanity, I wouldn't have the sound of the ultrasound interact with ambient noise.  Maybe in a truly exceptional case (Barghests, flash bang), I'd have the user essentially go blind for a moment, but that's more for flavor.

Nope.

[Xenon]

Grats to you both

Here are a few examples of how i think it could look like:

[Novocrane]

While those are some decent supporting images, you have to keep in mind that it's purely surfaces that reflect back to the sensor - no wall, window, or target penetration.

Silence spells I would consider to appear 'flat' emptiness with a 'shadow' of emptiness, rather than spherical, as you're only receiving up to the floor / walls that touch the edge of the spell, not the air affected where the sphere bulges over that, and no ultrasound will pass through the spell. The effect would be blatantly obvious as you move, but I assume the ultrasound system would overlay new data on old, allowing you to map the area around the spell while making it clear which parts you can / cannot see currently.

Ultrasound is perfect to “see” textures, calculate distances between objects, and pick up things otherwise invisible to the naked eye. (like people cloaked by an Invisibility spell)

It can’t handle colors or brightness. It also can’t penetrate materials like glass that would be transparent to optical sensors.

You can set it to a passive mode, where it doesn’t emit ultrasonic pulses but still picks up ultrasound from outside sources, such as motion sensors or someone else’s ultrasound sensors on active mode (or bats).

Worthy of note; the passive mode works off anything that emits ultrasound, and motion sensors are ubiquitous in cars and buildings. You may also have some issues using it while wearing a trode net, assuming the sensor is located on/in your head.

[Namikaze]

While those are some decent supporting images, you have to keep in mind that it's purely surfaces that reflect back to the sensor - no wall, window, or target penetration.

Exactly.  That's why the ultrasound from Dark Knight is close, but not quite.

Silence spells I would consider to appear 'flat' emptiness with a 'shadow' of emptiness, rather than spherical, as you're only receiving up to the floor / walls that touch the edge of the spell, not the air affected where the sphere bulges over that, and no ultrasound will pass through the spell. The effect would be blatantly obvious as you move, but I assume the ultrasound system would overlay new data on old, allowing you to map the area around the spell while making it clear which parts you can / cannot see currently.

IIRC, the ultrasound visual enhancement allows you to penetrate some surfaces of relatively thin depth.  Would the silence spell not effectively be invisible though?  Sure you aren't going to see what's on the other side of the spell, but unless the person knows to expect something there, it wouldn't necessarily seem amiss.  This takes some figuring out, but I think we might be talking about the same thing.

Worthy of note; the passive mode works off anything that emits ultrasound, and motion sensors are ubiquitous in cars and buildings. You may also have some issues using it while wearing a trode net, assuming the sensor is located on/in your head.

I think the vision enhancement would ignore the trodes, but that's probably something for the GM to determine on a case-by-case basis.  What I'm gathering here is that ultrasound is only able to retrieve and interpret sounds within it's spectrum.  This would mean that someone yelling wouldn't be "visible" to the ultrasonic vision.  So I'm going to assume ultrasonic vision is useless in a vacuum unless it's bouncing off of something - or more accurately, the vision is useless in any case without something to create the echo effect.  The best analogy would be perhaps to use a bat's echolocation as a baseline for determining the effects of ultrasonic vision.  If a bat wouldn't be able to know the thing is there, then you can't either.

[Novocrane]

IIRC, the ultrasound visual enhancement allows you to penetrate some surfaces of relatively thin depth.

Can you find a reference for that? It would fundamentally change things.

Would the silence spell not effectively be invisible though?  Sure you aren't going to see what's on the other side of the spell, but unless the person knows to expect something there, it wouldn't necessarily seem amiss.

Yes, but not seamlessly. Regardless of anything else, ultrasound hits maximum range at 50m by SR5. Inside that ... imagine you're in a room when suddenly two areas of nothing on the floor and ceiling cast a shadow of nothingness between them out to the edge of your vision. You can identify it as two circular spots you move, (possibly even identify the shape based on cumulative lost data / looking at objects moving behind the sphere) but it lacks any visible cause - while every other ultrasound shadow is defined by the object creating it. I'd consider that something amiss.

[Kincaid]

Oh, for the return of Radar Sense...

[KarmaInferno]

The silence holes would probably be a LOT more obvious indoors than outdoors.



-k

[Namikaze]

Can you find a reference for that? It would fundamentally change things.

Nope - no such thing.  Sorry for the confusion there.  Modern ultrasound sensors can only penetrate objects that are specially treated, and even then the sensor needs to be right up against it to work.  So I can't see a precedent for my confusion. 

Yes, but not seamlessly. Regardless of anything else, ultrasound hits maximum range at 50m by SR5. Inside that ... imagine you're in a room when suddenly two areas of nothing on the floor and ceiling cast a shadow of nothingness between them out to the edge of your vision. You can identify it as two circular spots you move, (possibly even identify the shape based on cumulative lost data / looking at objects moving behind the sphere) but it lacks any visible cause - while every other ultrasound shadow is defined by the object creating it. I'd consider that something amiss.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about too.  Good, we're on the same page then. 

Oh, for the return of Radar Sense...

Wouldn't ultrasound in passive mode be almost the same thing?

[ProfGast]

Ultrasonic vision is simply using sound waves that are above the normal range of hearing of humans, and using it to map an image from the sound's reflections.  As such it is usually an ACTIVE sensor since it has to broadcast the ultrasonic waves in order to form a good picture.

A "noisy" situation might enhance the image as you have more samples and more sounds bouncing to form an analysis from, but it also might cloud the vision from having too many stray sounds that overloads the image.

a "silent" situation would mean insufficient return and would likely result into a blurry or poorly focused image.  A hole of silence in front of an ultrasonic sensor would detect nothing, and depending on how much ultrasound you're sending out, a sharp or soft "edge" to the nothingness. 

And by definition, Ultrasound uses sound, and therefore does not function in a vacuum.

There's a manga which I think addresses ultrasound fairly well called "Until Death do us Part" by Takashige HIroshi (author) and Double S (artist).  The main character is a (mostly) blind man who uses what is essentially an ultrasound sensor to see.   He's also pretty much a street samurai/Adept swordsman with a monosword.

And no, Passive ultrasound and radar sense are totally different.  Passive Ultrasound uses only ambient noise and ultrasound to create an image, and thus is usually far less clear than active ultrasound.  Active ultrasound uses something to generate pulses of ultrasound to ensure an image will form from the reflections.

Radar (RAdio Direction And Ranging) sense uses electromagnetic waves which have both greater range, and significantly higher penetrative force than sound waves to form images.

[Magnaric]

I always pictured it as sort of an overlay on top of regular vision, sort of like a hued technical/visual "aura" that envelopes everything solid it detects.

A VERY rudimentary version might be like this.

[Namikaze]

Holy crap that's a great explanation, ProfGast.  Thank you. 

I think I will have to look into that manga to (hopefully) get a good representation of what ultrasonic vision would look like.