Patent ID: 8780024
Filing Date: 2014-07-15
Classification: G03B,H04N

Abstract:
1. A projector for projecting an image, with an illumination modulator struck by light with n×m illumination pixels which are arranged in n columns and m rows and which are controlled independently of one another in order to modulate the intensity of the light pixel-by-pixel; imaging optics, arranged downstream of the illumination modulator, which image the light modulated pixel-by-pixel onto an image modulator, with n×m image pixels which are arranged in n columns and m rows and which are controlled independently of one another to generate the image to be projected, such that each illumination pixel is allocated to multiple image pixels and such that a portion of each illumination pixel is allocated to a portion of each of the multiple image pixels and wherein each of the portions is less than an entire pixel, a control unit, to which image data of the image to be generated are fed, and which generates, from the image data, pulse width modulation illumination control data for the illumination modulator and inputs the illumination control data into the illumination modulator to modulate the light, and also generates pulse width modulation image control data for the image modulator and inputs the image control data into the image modulator to generate an image, wherein the illumination pixels can each be switched into a first state in which the light coming from the illumination pixel is imaged onto the multiple-allocated image pixels, and into a second state in which no light from the illumination pixel is to be imaged onto the multiple allocated image pixels, and the image pixels can each be switched into a first state in which the light coming from the image pixel is used to generate an image, and into a second state in which no light from the image pixel is used to generate an image, wherein the pulse width modulation illumination control data for every illumination pixel has either an on-value to illuminate the allocated image pixels of the image modulator with the light coming from these illumination pixels to generate an image, or an off-value to minimize the intensity of the light coming from this illumination pixel and imaged onto the allocated image pixels, and are generated by the control unit such that the pulse width modulation illumination control data have the on-value for every illumination pixel which is allocated to at least one image pixel which is to represent a brightness value lying above a predetermined threshold value in the image according to the image data, which is chosen such that every illumination pixel which is allocated to at least one image pixel which is to represent a brightness value which lies above the predetermined threshold value and below a predetermined maximum value according to the image data is at least sometimes also switched into the second state during times in a selected frame period when the at least one allocated image pixel is switched into the second state; wherein the image pixels which are to represent a brightness value which lies above the predetermined threshold value and below the predetermined maximum value are not illuminated by the allocated illumination pixel during the times in the selected frame period when the allocated illumination pixel is switched in the second state so that perceived background brightness is reduced.