Patent ID: 8602563

Claim:
A projection image display apparatus comprising: a light source; an illumination optical system that uniformly irradiates a surface of an image modulation element, which serves as a primary image surface, with a light beam emitted from the light source; and a projection optical system that enlarges and projects image information on the primary image surface modulated by the image modulation element onto a screen which serves as a secondary image surface, wherein the projection optical system includes a first optical system that forms an intermediate image on the basis of the image information on the primary image surface; a single-image second optical system that enlarges and projects the intermediate image to output a single image for display on the screen; a plural-image second optical system that enlarges and projects the intermediate image to output a plurality of images for display on the screen; and an optical path switching mechanism that selectively guides a light beam from the first optical system to either of the single-image second optical system and the plural-image second optical system.