Soldier wearing MultiCam
MultiCam
MultiCam in a arid environment
MultiCam in a green environment
MultiCam is a multi-terrain pattern designed by Crye Precision. It is a single camouflage pattern designed to help the wearer hide in varied environments, seasons, elevations, and light conditions. It was designed to address the real-world need for concealment in different environments, with one basic kit of gear. While there are many great location-specific patterns, MultiCam is designed to work well across a very broad range of environmental conditions when observed in both the visual and near infrared (night vision) spectrums. The pattern is designed to reflect some of the surrounding colors of the environment. It takes on an overall green appearance when under a green forest canopy and an overall tan look when in the open desert. By adapting to varying local lighting conditions, it blends well in many environments, elevations, seasons, weather conditions, and times of the day. The design takes advantage of the way the human eye and brain perceives shape, volume, and color. Since only a very small portion of the human eye perceives color, the brain does a lot of “filling-in” for the eye. The unique design of MultiCam takes advantage of this principle and helps the observer to “see” the pattern as part of the background. MultiCam relies more on a blending effect than a contrast effect to disguise the wearer. This effect allows it to perform in a wide range of environments, and keeps the pattern effective even at close distances where pixelated or “blocky” patterns often stand out against natural, non-blocky environments. It was based on an earlier pattern called Scorpion jointly designed by Crye and the United States Army's Natick Labs.
MultiCam is also the basis of the British Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP), replacing the older Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM), and the Australian Multicam Pattern (AMP), which replaced the current DPCU. Polish special forces are using a version of the Multicam called Suez. The US Army's Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) is closely related as it was also derived from the original Scorpion pattern.