Enveloped in a green plastic raincoat, Kazutoshi Obana slowly raised his arms. Then, with a click of a button, Mr. Obana, a graduate student at Tokyo University, faded away.

In his place, a ghostly image of the cityscape directly behind him came into view.

Graduate students may be resigned to some invisibility, particularly in the eyes of their advisers, but this was something else entirely: an "invisible" raincoat, under development at the university.

It is the brainchild of Susumu Tachi, a professor of computer science and information physics.

While invisibility has long been a plot element in films like "The Invisible Man" and the Harry Potter series, Dr. Tachi said his device was far removed from movie magic.

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