Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Denshi Kabushiki Kaisha

Hiroaki Hoshi

Masakuni Yamamoto

Eiji Yamaguchi

Susumu Matsumura

Hideki Morishima

Naosato Taniguchi

Kiyonobu Endo

Kazutaka Inoguchi

Toshiyuki Sudo

Koyo Hasegawa

Tsunefumi Tanaka

Takeshi Akiyama

Toshihiro Sunaga

Noritaka Mochizuki

Tetsuro Kuwayama

Jun Tokumitsu

Hiroshi Osawa

Takao Sasakura

Ichiro Iida

Takeshi Miyazaki

Yasuo Nakamura

Saburo Sugawara

Nobuo Fukushima

Toshikazu Ohnishi

Shunsuke Inoue

Sotomitsu Ikeda

Katsumi Iijima

Hiroshi Saruwatari

Tomotaka Muramoto

Kazumi Tanaka

Shigeki Okauchi

Keisuke Araki

Matsuomi Nishimura

Hidehito Takayama

Michiharu Aratani

Atsushi Namba

Susumi Matsumura

Kozomu Kitagishi

An optical element formed from a transparent optical material includes two refraction surfaces, a first reflection surface group having a plurality of internal reflection surfaces arrayed in a predetermined direction, a second reflection surface group opposing the first reflection surface group and having at least one internal reflection surface and two side surfaces opposing each other in parallel to the predetermined direction. Light incident from one of the refraction surfaces is alternately reflected by the internal reflection surfaces of the first reflection surface group and the internal reflection surface of the second reflection surface group and guided to the other refraction surface. The width of at least one of the plurality of internal reflection surfaces of the first reflection surface group and at least one internal reflection surface of the second reflection surface group in a direction in which the two side surfaces oppose each other is smaller than the distance between the two side surfaces in the direction in which the side surfaces oppose each other.

Optical element and optical system having the same

In order to detect the amplitude and phase of object light with a high SNR, an image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup unit having semiconductor photodetection elements arrayed two-dimensionally, a light-emitting element unit for emitting reference light having a predetermined frequency difference with respect to the frequency of light incident on the image pickup unit, and a wave synthesizer for synthesizing the incident light with the reference light from the light-emitting element unit and guiding the resultant light to the image pickup unit.

Image pickup apparatus having a wave synthesizer for incident and reference light

An optical element includes a base member formed of a material transmitting a light of a predetermined wavelength therethrough and an optical acting surface provided on the base member. The optical acting surface has a plurality of micro structures smaller than the predetermined wavelength for creating potential confining one of an electron and a dipole moment therein, and desired optical action utilizing the light of the predetermined wavelength discharged by the vibration of the electron or the dipole moment confined in the potential formed by the micro structures.

Optical element and optical apparatus provided with the same

A display apparatus is constituted by a planar display device and a planar illumination device therefor. A lowering in light quantity at a periphery of the planar illumination device is prevented by inserting a reflection member, such as a reflection frame, having an inside reflection surface along the periphery of the illumination device, or a combination of a scattering means and a transparent sheet member between the display device and the illumination device. A plurality of the display apparatus may be combined to allow an associate movement thereof so as to constitute a composite display apparatus, such as a head-mount display.

Illumination device and display apparatus including same

An optical element of a transparent body has two refracting surfaces formed in surfaces of the transparent body, and a plurality of reflecting surfaces formed in surfaces of the transparent body. Light incident through one refracting surface into the transparent body is reflected successively by the plurality of reflecting surfaces to be guided to the other refracting surface. At least one of the two refracting surfaces and reflecting surfaces has an optical low pass filter.

Optical element and optical device having it

Convergence angle information and image information of video cameras is transmitted from a multi-eye image-taking apparatus having two video cameras through a recording medium to a displaying apparatus. A convergence angle of display units in the displaying apparatus is controlled in accordance with the convergence angle information of the video cameras, permitting an observer to observe natural images. Since the convergence angle information is made ahead of the image information, the convergence angle of the display units can be changed with a natural feeling.

Image display system

A near-field optical microscope comprising an optical probe which is arranged in opposition to a sample and irradiates the sample with an evanescent wave, a plurality of photodetectors which detect respective components of light scattered in different directions, among components of the scattered light generated by scattering of the evanescent wave by the sample, and a processor which analyzes characteristics of the sample on the basis of respective detection signals of the plurality of photodetectors.

Near-field optical microscope

An optical system includes an optical element having a plurality of reflective surfaces integrally formed, at least one reflective surface out of the plurality of reflective surfaces of the optical element being a curved surface a normal to which at an intersecting point with a reference axis does not coincide with the reference axis, an image pickup element to which light successively reflected by the plurality of reflective surfaces is incident, and an optical member for making at least part of the light that ought to enter the image pickup element, travel in an optical path different from an optical path toward the image pickup element. The light made to travel in the different optical path by the optical member is utilized for a purpose other than image pickup by said image pickup element.

Optical system and image pickup apparatus having the same

An optical element integrally has an optically acting surface, which is a rotationally asymmetric, aspherical surface, and a monitor surface for evaluation of whether the optical element is defective or not. The monitor surface is provided in a portion effecting no optical action, except for the optically acting surface.

Optical element, optical device provided therewith, and method for evaluating optical element

A liquid crystal display device comprises a reflective type liquid crystal panel with pixels which are arranged in two-dimentionally and which modulate irradiated light utilizing polymer dispersed liquid crystal capable of exhibiting two conditions including scattering and unscattering. The device is provided with an optical member having a multiple-interference effect at a predetermined angle with respect to the surface of the reflective type liquid crystal panel.

Polymer dispersed liquid crystal panel

A stereoscopic display apparatus and method performs and includes, respectively, steps of dividing each of a plurality of parallax images supplied from a parallax image source having parallax image information into stripe pixels, displaying, on a display, a single stripe image by arranging and synthesizing some of the stripe pixels in a predetermined order, displaying a slit pattern consisting of a light-transmission portion and a light-shielding portion arranged at a predetermined pitch on a spatial light modulation element arranged at a predetermined position on the front or rear side of the display, inputting light transmitted through the stripe pixels, corresponding to the right and left eyes of an observer, of the stripe image to the right and left eyes of the observer via the spatial light modulation element and synchronously displaying the stripe pattern and the slit pattern in units of pixels or scan lines on corresponding scan lines of the display and the spatial light modulation element.

Stereoscopic image display method, and stereoscopic image display

This invention relates to a multi-eye image display apparatus. The apparatus has right-eye moving image display for emitting light to display a moving image for the right eye, right-eye still image display for emitting light to display a still image for the right eye, left-eye moving image display for emitting light to display a moving image for the left eye, left-eye still image display for emitting light to display a still image for the left eye and optical device for guiding a light beam from the right-eye moving image display and a light beam from the right-eye still image display to the pupil of the right eye of an observer and guiding a light beam from the left-eye moving image display and a light beam from the left-eye still image display to the pupil of the left eye of the observer, whereby the observer can make fusion between the still images and fusion between the moving images.

Multi-eye image display apparatus

An illumination device is formed from a light-transmissive light guide member, and a light source disposed on a side of the light guide member to emit light to the light guide member. The light guide member is formed to include an anisotropic grating preferably at a boundary between an anisotropic member having a refractive index anisotropy and a substantially non-anisotropic member laminated on the anisotropic member. The anisotropic grating may be formed as a one-dimensionally arranged grating for causing selective diffraction of, e.g., an ordinary ray. As a result, the illumination device is caused to function as a planar light source emitting linearly polarized light of a uniform luminance distribution suitably used in combination with a transmission-type or reflection-type liquid crystal device to form a small-sized and thin liquid crystal apparatus.

Illumination device and liquid crystal apparatus including same

This invention relates to an image display method, which includes the steps mainly characterized by allowing the observer to stereoscopically view the three-dimensional partial image by guiding a light beam coming from the three-dimensional partial image to a predetermined position via a partial parallax barrier, which is formed by light directivity controlling means, arranged to oppose the image displaying means, by alternately arranging stripe-shaped light-transmitting portions and light-shielding portions on an area corresponding to the three-dimensional partial image; and controlling, using light amount adjusting means, the brightness levels of the partial images to be observed by the observer in correspondence with the view point numbers of the partial images.

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Yokohama, Japan

Hiroaki Hoshi