Patent ID: 7198373

Claim:
A projection apparatus comprising: a) an illumination section comprising: i) a light source providing a substantially unpolarized illumination beam of multiple wavelengths; ii) a multiple wavelength polarizer for polarizing the substantially unpolarized illumination beam to provide a substantially polarized illumination beam of multiple wavelengths; iii) a uniformizer for conditioning the substantially polarized illumination beam of multiple wavelengths to provide a uniformized polarized beam of multiple wavelengths; iv) a color separator for separating the uniformized polarized beam of multiple wavelengths into at least a first component wavelength illumination and a second component wavelength illumination; b) at least two component wavelength modulating sections, each component wavelength modulating section accepting a corresponding component wavelength illumination and modulating the component wavelength illumination to provide a modulated component wavelength beam, each component wavelength modulating section comprising: i) a portion of a monochrome transmissive liquid crystal modulator panel that has been segmented into at least a first portion and a second portion, and wherein each portion is spatially separated from each other portion; ii) a component wavelength polarizer in the path of the component wavelength illumination for directing substantially polarized light to the corresponding portion of the monochrome transmissive liquid crystal modulator panel; iii) an illumination path Fresnel lens for focusing incident illumination from the component wavelength polarizer through the corresponding portion of the monochrome transmissive liquid crystal modulator panel; iv) an analyzer for conditioning the polarization of the modulated component wavelength beam; v) a lens for forming an image for projection onto a display surface; and whereby the image formed on the display surface comprises a plurality of superimposed component wavelength beams.