Patent ID: 7382529

Claim:
An illumination apparatus comprising: a light-emitting means for emitting an illumination beam having a round cross section; and a light-refracting optical element arranged to receive the illumination beam, wherein the optical element includes a light entrance surface and a light exit surface, at least one of the light entrance surface and the light exit surface having a free-form surface shaped so that all the light from a received illumination beam is bundled into a resultant illumination beam having a cross-sectional shape chosen from a group of shapes consisting of a triangle, a rectangle, a polygon, a semicircle, a slit, and a crescent; wherein the optical element is rotatable about an optical axis of the illumination beam, an imaging optic is arranged after the optical element on the optical axis, the optical element is arranged directly on the light-emitting means, and the light-emitting means and optical element are displaceable along the optical axis.