Patent ID: 8172404

Claim:
A coherent light projection system comprising: a coherent light source system configured at least to emit coherent light; an image forming system including one or more spatial light modulators configured at least to interact with the coherent light in a manner consistent with image data; a relay system configured at least to form an intermediate image at an intermediate image plane from coherent light output from the image forming system, the intermediate image being an aerial real image; a refractive speckle reduction element located at or substantially at the intermediate image plane, the refractive speckle reduction element comprising a lenslet arrangement formed on a surface of the refractive speckle reduction element, the lenslet arrangement comprising lenslets each having an aperture, wherein a size of the lenslet apertures is greater than or equal to a size of an image pixel of the intermediate image at the intermediate image plane such that refractive beam steering effects associated with the lenslet arrangement are substantially larger than any diffusion effects associated with the lenslet arrangements; a movement generating system configured at least to move the refractive speckle reduction element and steer image light of the intermediate image as the intermediate image is transferred through the lenslet arrangement of the refractive speckle reduction element; and a projection subsystem configured at least to project the steered image light of the intermediate image, as transferred through the moving refractive speckle reduction element.