Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Opto, Inc.

Iwao Adachi

Yasumasa Sawai

Kazuhiko Inoue

Hideki Nagata

Satoshi Onishi

Sinji Harada

Masumi Shoji

Takahiro Mouri

First and second light sources emit first and second light beams, respectively. A light condensing system condenses the beams, and a polarization separation system separates each of the beams into first and second polarization components. A &#xbd; phase plate converts the polarization state of the first polarization component to one equal to that of the second polarization component, and a rod integrator uniformizes spatial energy distribution of the beams condensed by the light condensing system. A relay system forms an image of an exit face of the rod integrator on a region to be illuminated. The light condensing system condenses the first and second polarization components onto first and second regions, respectively, of an entrance face of the rod integrator; and the &#xbd; phase plate is placed at the first region of the entrance face of the rod integrator or at a position conjugate with the first region.

Illumination optical system and projector

A projector, which projects color images using the three liquid crystal panels ( ) while cooling them by the fans ( ) for G, R, and B panels, comprises the level calculation unit ( ) for finding the intensity levels of the R, G, and B components of image signals, the level calculation unit ( ) for finding the voice levels of voice signals, the fan control unit ( ) for controlling the numbers of revolutions of the fans ( ), and the memory ( ) for storing the cumulative amount of lighting time of the lamp ( ). As the intensity levels get higher, the numbers of revolutions of the fans are increased, and as the cumulative amount of lighting time becomes larger, the numbers of revolutions of the fans are decreased. As a result, unnecessary noises caused by the fans ( ) can be reduced while the liquid crystal panels ( ) are properly cooled. Thus, the present invention has an object of reducing the noise of the fan which cools the display devices such as liquid crystal panels in a projector. Thus, the object of the present invention is to realize a reduction in noise caused by the fan for cooling a display device such as liquid crystal panels in a projector.

Projector with fan controller

The image acquisition device of the present invention includes an image forming lens to form a condensed image, a CCD to convert a condensed image to electric signals, and flag table memory to store predetermined correction flags, which indicate whether or not to cull a pixel so as to correct distortion caused by the image forming lens. The image acquisition device further includes a distortion correction circuit to execute the culling of pixels included in image signals in accordance with a correction flag for each pixel. The image acquisition device removes the distortion component contained in the image signal in real time.

Image acquisition device removing distortion in image signals

A projector includes a duct having a connecting end for connection to an air inlet provided in a housing, and an air intake end for drawing in outside air for cooling the interior of the projector. The duct is made of a soft or flexible material and is capable of altering its shape. Thus, the duct can change the position of the air intake end in space, for example, to different positions. Further, the duct is pivotable on a pivot axis, and thus can change the opening direction of the air intake end circumferentially about the pivot axis. Therefore, selection of the position and/or opening direction of the air intake end so as to draw in the outside air suitable for cooling the interior depending on the usage forms of the projector achieves efficient cooling of the interior of the projector.

Growing community of inventors

Moriguchi, Japan

Iwao Adachi