Patent ID: 8678599

Claim:
A laser projection system comprising a light source, an optical scanning component, a focusing component, a speckle reduction diffusing surface, and an optical collimating component, wherein: the light source comprises at least one laser configured to emit an output beam; the focusing component is positioned in an optical path of the output beam emitted by the light source and focuses the output beam at a first focused point located prior to the optical scanning component; the speckle reduction diffusing surface is operable to be selectively introduced into the optical path of the output beam at the first focused point prior to the optical scanning component; the optical collimating component is positioned in the optical path of the output beam after the focusing component and is operable to at least nearly collimate the output beam onto the optical scanning component; the laser projection system is programmed to generate at least a portion of a scanned laser image on a projection surface by operating the laser for optical emission of encoded image data and controlling the optical scanning component to scan the output beam across a plurality of image pixels; the optical collimating component is configured such that the first focused point is imaged at a second focused point at the projection surface when the speckle reduction diffusing surface is introduced into the optical path of the output beam; and the laser projection system operates in an infinite depth of focus mode when the speckle reduction diffusing surface is not introduced into the optical path of the output beam.