Patent ID: 6075648
Filing Date: 2000-06-13
Classification: G02B,H04N

Abstract:
An apparatus comprising:an illuminator including a plurality of light source units, each light source unit having a luminous body and a reflector for reflecting light from the luminous body so as to form a component light beam, said plurality of light source units being arranged in a row so as to form a plurality of component light beams; andan integrator composed of at least two lenticular lens arrays arranged along an optical axis that is transverse to said row, said integrator receiving incident light from each of the plurality of component light beams and forming an output, said integrator functioning to make the output more uniform than the light incident on said integrator from each of the plurality of component light beams; and,means to reposition a fight beam from at least one of the light source units so that, without the affect of the integrator, the light beam appears to originate from a light source unit that is positioned nearer the optical axis than the actual light source unit which produced the light of said light bean;whereinsaid reflector is rotationally symmetric so as to produce a beam having a diameter, and wherein a first ratio is greater than a second ratio, with said first ratio being determined by having its numerator correspond to a distance, off-axis, of a given light source unit, and its denominator correspond to the distance, off-axis, of the corresponding repositioned light beam from said light source unit, and the second ratio is determined by having its numerator correspond to the diameter of the component light beam from the given light source unit and its denominator correspond to the diameter of the corresponding repositioned light beam.