Patent ID: 7909474

Claim:
A digital projection apparatus comprising: a) a first light modulation subsystem comprising: a first light source configured to produce linear illumination of a first spectral color; a second light source configured to produce linear illumination of a second spectral color; a first light modulator chip having at least two independently addressable linear arrays of light modulating devices; a first spatial filter disposed to block reflected light from the at least two arrays of light modulating devices and to transmit diffracted light from the at least two arrays of light modulating devices along a first optical path; b) a second light modulation subsystem comprising: at least a third light source configured to produce linear illumination of a third spectral color; a second light modulator chip having at least one independently addressable linear array of light modulating devices; a second spatial filter disposed to block reflected light from the at least one array of light modulating devices and to transmit diffracted light from the at least one array of light modulating devices along a second optical path; c) a color combining element disposed near the intersection of the first and second optical paths to direct incident modulated light from the first and second optical paths onto a common optical path; d) projection optics disposed to direct modulated light along the common optical path toward a scanning element for projection toward a display surface; wherein one or more of the at least two independently addressable linear arrays of light modulating devices from the first chip modulates light at half the pixel resolution of modulated light in an array direction from the at least one independently addressable linear arrays of light modulating devices from the second chip; wherein one or more of the at least two independently addressable linear arrays of light modulating devices from the first chip modulates light at half the pixel resolution of modulated light in a scan direction from the at least one independently addressable linear arrays of light modulating devices from the second chip; and wherein half resolution is obtained in the scan direction by adjusting data timing and in the linear array direction by operating the modular array at half pixel resolution.