Patent ID: 7643050

Claim:
A light modulating apparatus comprising: a light source for emitting light; a light valve of diffraction grating type for modulating the light emitted from the light source in accordance with image information, the light valve comprising plural sets of ribbon pairs arranged in parallel, each set of the plural sets of ribbon pairs having a plurality of pairs of a fixed ribbon and a movable ribbon, and each set being assigned to one pixel of an image; and a control section that drives independently each pair of the fixed ribbon and the movable ribbon; wherein the control section further executes an outline recognition processing based on the image information, and based on the outline recognition processing determines whether an outline correction processing for increasing or decreasing a width of a target pixel in an array direction of the ribbons is necessary; wherein: when the control section has determined that increasing the width of the target pixel is necessary, a driving condition of a ribbon pair in an adjoining pixel that is nearest to a border between the adjoining pixel and the target pixel is made the same as a driving condition of plural ribbon pairs assigned to the target pixel; and when the control section has determined that decreasing the width of the target pixel is necessary, a driving condition of a ribbon pair in the target pixel that is nearest to a border between an adjoining pixel and the target pixel is made different from a driving condition of remaining ribbon pairs assigned to the target pixel.