Patent ID: 8334897

Claim:
Directional illumination unit for an autostereoscopic display, comprising an illumination means with a multitude of discretely controllable illumination elements arranged in a matrix, and an imaging means with one-dimensionally effective imaging elements arranged in parallel, for activating a certain number of illumination elements for each imaging element, and for imaging pencils of rays which originate in the activated illumination elements sequentially into a viewing space for forming a visibility region on observer eyes, where the imaging means is assigned with a prism array of prism elements arranged in parallel, said prism elements having a three-part prism structure which recurs in the horizontal direction, further comprising a vertical light distribution balancing means, and an image reproduction means, wherein: the imaging means and the prism array are positioned at the same inclination angle α>0° to the vertical axis of the image reproduction means, where one prism element of the prism array and one imaging element of the imaging means are of a rod-shaped design, have the same pitch, and form a functional optical unit for optically enlarging a horizontal deflection range of the pencils of rays which originate in the activated illumination elements, and where each prism element covers an angular range of the created pencils of rays at a set inclination angle α.