Nippon Carbide Industries Co., Inc.

Nippon Carbide Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Chihiro Hayashi

Ikuo Mimura

Keiji Amemiya

Takuma Houzyou

Hiroshi Hamada

Naotake Osaki

Akihiro Mathuda

An image display device includes a half mirror, an image output device configured to output a light beam to one face of the half mirror, and a retroreflective member configured to retroreflect at least one of a light beam mirror-reflected off the one face of the half mirror and a light beam transmitted through the one face of the half mirror. The retroreflective member has a base material layer and a plurality of prismatic retroreflective elements formed on one face or two faces of the base material layer. The tilt angle of the optical axis of the prismatic retroreflective element exceeds zero degree.

Image display device

An image display device includes a half mirror, an image output device configured to output a light beam to one face of the half mirror, and a retroreflective member configured to retroreflect at least one of a light beam mirror-reflected off the one face of the half mirror and a light beam transmitted through the one face of the half mirror. The retroreflective member has a base material layer and a plurality of prismatic retroreflective elements formed on one face or two faces of the base material layer. The height of the prismatic retroreflective elements is 10 &#x3bc;m or more and 1,000 &#x3bc;m or less. The tilt angle of the optical axis of the prismatic retroreflective elements is zero degree.

[Object] An apparatus and a method for producing optical sheeting with which increased productivity can be achieved while maintaining the accuracy of produced optical sheeting. [Solution] An apparatusfor producing optical sheeting includes: a first rotating roll Rconfigured to be heated; a second rotating roll R; a first belt mold Sthat has molds for optical elements on a surface thereof, and is configured to turn around the first rotating roll and the second rotating roll; a sheet feeding means Dconfigured to feed synthetic resin sheeting onto a surface of the first belt mold S, a second belt mold Sconfigured to be pressed against the first belt mold Sand to turn with the turning of the first belt mold S; and at least two pressure rolls Rand Raround which the second belt mold Sis mounted and which is configured to press the second belt mold Sagainst the first belt mold S, wherein the pressure roll Ris arranged at a position where the second belt mold Scomes away from the first belt mold Sand cooled at a surface thereof.

Apparatus and method for producing optical sheeting

A retroreflective article having excellent retroreflective efficiency, entrance angle characteristic, observation angle characteristic, and rotation angle characteristic is provided. In a retroreflective article including a number of cube corner retroreflective elements formed in a closely packed manner on a common plane (plane Sc), each of the cube corner retroreflective elements having three reflective lateral surfaces (surface a, surface b and surface c) that have three edge lines (HD, HE and HF) and one apex (H) in common and an optical axis that passes through the apex (H) and is at equal distance from the three reflective lateral surfaces (surface a, surface b and surface c), the retroreflective article includes at least two or more types of cube corner retroreflective elements having optical axes tilted with respect to each other within a plane (plane Sv) that is perpendicular to a reflective lateral surface (surface c) and includes a common edge line (HF) of the other reflective lateral surfaces (surface a and surface b) and a perpendicular line from the apex (H) to the common plane (plane Sc).

Retroreflective article

The present invention relates to a triangular pyramidal cube corner retroreflective article and a producing method thereof. In the triangular pyramidal cube corner retroreflective article, a triangular pyramidal cube corner retroreflective element pair group is disposed in a closest-packed fashion on a common plane defined by three base lines, and the each of retroreflective elements in a pair having one base line (A-B) shared by the retroreflective elements in the pair. The triangular pyramidal cube corner retroreflective article includes a first element pair group, in which two interior angles (&#x3b1;=&#x2220;BAC and &#x3b2;=&#x2220;ABC) formed by the shared base line of the element pair and two other base lines are different from each other and the element pair is line-symmetrically disposed in relation to the shared base line (A-B); and a second element pair group, in which the element pair is congruent to a line-symmetrical shape to the first element pair in relation to a line segment connecting vertexes of the base planes.

Triangular pyramid type cube corner retroreflection article, and its manufacturing method

A cube-corner retroreflective article is provided with a number of cube-corner retroreflective element pairs each formed by a pair of cube-corner retroreflective elements sharing one side. Each of the cube-corner retroreflective elements has reflective lateral surfaces including two trapezoidal reflective lateral surfaces and one pentagonal or isosceles-triangular reflective lateral surface, and a projection shape of a quadrangle when projected onto a common plane, wherein ratios (rHA/rHC and rHB/rHC) between a length (rHC) of a ridge (HC) shared by the trapezoidal reflective lateral surfaces (HAFC and HBGC) and lengths (rHA and rHB) of other ridges (HA and HB) are in a range of 0.5 to 1.5.

Cube-corner retroreflective article

A retroreflective article including a retroreflective element layer having an array of a large number of total internal reflective cube corner retroreflective elements, an optical property-adjusting layer partially provided on the back side of the retroreflective element layer, and an air layer on the back side of the optical property-adjusting layer. The retroreflective article exhibits optical properties suited for an intended use, such as a reflector of traffic or commercial signs, such as traffic signs, regulating signs, informative signs, and construction signs, or visible, laser or infrared light reflective sensors, by the presence of the optical property-adjusting layer with an adjusted hue or an adjusted area ratio. The retroreflective article can easily be produced at low cost and high efficiency by utilizing an existing retroreflective article.

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Namerikawa, Japan

Chihiro Hayashi