The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 10, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 02, 2000
Masahiro Maeda, Shizuoka, JP;
Kazunori Natsume, Shizuoka, JP;
Koito Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
In a shape determining method of a reflective surface of a reflector in a vehicle lamp in such structure that a basic shape thereof is a free-formed surface satisfying shape constraints etc. and that reflective surface elements are assigned to segments obtained by dividing the free-formed surface into an array pattern, a reference plane is defined as a plane opposite to the free-formed surface and normal to the optical axis Ax, and the free-formed surface is projected onto the reference plane to determine the reflective surface. This permits uniform handling independent of the shape of the free-formed surface and thus can simplify design steps and make the resultant shape of the reflective surface suitable. Thus, the reflective surface determining method of the reflector in the vehicle lamp permitting efficient creation of the segments on the free-formed surface and efficient creation of the reflective surface elements assigned to the respective segments can be realized.