JPH01189688A - Light transmission type display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To miniaturize the scale of an image forming means and to obtain a light transmission type display device, whose fiber length is shortened, with a low cost by forming an image with the plural image forming means, which is parallelly driven with distributing serial data. CONSTITUTION:As an optical shutter 104 which is the image forming means, plural liquid crystal display bodies (LCD) are used and these bodies are engaged to plural incident end faces 201 of respective optical fibers 103. One block 101 to constitute a screen has a structure to be mutually a nest in the image output edge of the fiber 103 which goes to be the image. By integrating a light source device 105 and illuminating integrally all incident surfaces, unevenness due to the dispersion of the light source is prevented. The fiber 103 is inserted to a spacer in a horizontal direction and enlarges an LCD image in a vertical direction by using a cutting method. Then, the whole screen is formed by laminating these LCD images. The input serial display data are once accumulated in a memory by a CPU, parallelly read with being matched to the sharing parts of the respective LCDs and respectively distributed. Then, the respective LCDs are driven in parallel.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application fields] The present invention relates to a light guide type display device.

[Prior art] Conventional light guide type display devices include U, S, P, 4650280
The display screen was constructed by simply stacking blocks of bundled fibers, as disclosed in .

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the conventional light guide type display device requires a large-scale image forming means to form an image on the entire screen at once.

This made the system expensive and required a very long fiber length. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to form an image using a plurality of image forming means, to reduce the scale of the image forming means, and to obtain a low-cost light guiding type display device with a shortened fiber length.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The light guiding type display device of the present invention is characterized in that a screen is formed by a plurality of image forming means.

Furthermore, the image forming means are driven in parallel, and the display data of the image forming means is distributed to each image forming means as serial data. It is characterized in that it is given from an image memory.

[Embodiment 1] FIG. 1 shows an overall view of a light guiding type display device of the present invention. 1
01 is one block constituting the screen, and the blocks have a nested structure with each other at the image output end of the light guide serving as the screen. 102 is the other end surface of the light guide 103, which is an image input end. 104 is an optical shutter which is an image forming means, and in this embodiment, a liquid crystal display (hereinafter referred to as
A plurality of LCDs (referred to as LCDs) were used. Further, 105 is a light source device.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the entrance plane when a plurality of LCDs are coupled to a fiber. The fiber input end is divided into a plurality of input surfaces 201, and each input surface has a small-scale L CD 20.
It is contracted to 2. At this time, by using one light source and illuminating all the incident surfaces at once, it is possible to prevent unevenness caused by variations in the light sources. Furthermore, such a configuration allows the scale of the LCD to be reduced and the L
It also has the advantage of making it easy to secure mounting space for the CD.

203 indicated by diagonal lines in FIG. 2 is an LCD driver circuit board, which does not affect the display at all by being installed between the unit units.

In this embodiment, in order to handle TV signals, at least 5
Although it requires about 100 x 500 pixels, the above-mentioned unitization makes it possible to use a small-scale LCD with about 100 x 100 pixels. Another advantage is that it becomes easier to obtain space for installing a circuit for inputting electrical signals for control, which is essential for LCDs.

The image magnification method using a fiber-based light guiding optical system is as follows.
Methods such as inserting a spacer between fibers and cutting the fibers diagonally are known, and these methods may be applied as appropriate. In this example, the image formed by the optical shutter is enlarged by inserting a spacer in the horizontal direction and using a cutting method in the vertical direction, and then the images are stacked as shown in Figure 1 to form the entire screen. did.

Next, a driving method when a plurality of LCDs are used will be explained. One of the simplest methods is to connect the X and Y lines as if they were a single LCD, as shown in FIG. 303 is each LCD, 301 is an X-side scanning circuit, and 302 is a Y-side scanning circuit.

In FIG. 4, an X-side scanning circuit 403 and a Y-side scanning circuit 404 are arranged for each LCD in order to reduce the number of connection lines between the LCD and external circuits, and the wiring to each LCD is connected to the display data 401 and the corresponding timing signal 402. I keep it to myself.

By storing one line of data on each LCD and selecting lines on the Y side in parallel, it is possible to set the duty ratio per pixel of each LCD so that it does not become high, which reduces the drop in LCD characteristics. It is possible to avoid this.

Any LCD that can form a matrix type image can be used, but in this example, a TPT-LCD was used. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a drive circuit when a plurality of TPT-LCDs are used. Video signal may be A/
The data is converted into digital data by a D converter 502 and stored in a frame memory 503. 504 is a timing generation circuit that takes timing. From frame memory,
The display data, which has become analog data again through the D/A converter 505, is transferred to each TPT-LCD 506 in accordance with the selection timing. Each TPT-LCD
is an X scanning circuit 50 having an analog data latch circuit.
7 has been installed. Here, data for one line corresponding to the display area is latched. This is transferred to the selected Y line in accordance with the timing on the Y side.

A Y scanning circuit 508 performs this. Methods of selection timing on the Y side include a method of sequentially selecting Y lines of a plurality of TFT-LCDs and a method of selecting Y lines of each TFT-LCD in parallel.

The latter method is advantageous in that it allows a longer time for one Y line to be selected and further reduces the number of wirings to the LCD. 509 is a timing setting circuit on the Y side.

Next, a case where display data is sent to each LCD in parallel will be explained. FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram thereof. The serially transmitted data 602 is stored in the display memory 60.
1 and read out in parallel according to the portion assigned to each LCD 603. 604 is a data bus, 605
is a CPU that performs control. Figure 7 shows TPT-LC
FIG. 3 is a circuit block diagram when D is used in a matrix LCD. The video signal 7 old is converted into digital data by an A/D converter 702 and stored in a frame memory 703. 704 is a timing generation circuit that takes timing. From the frame memory, the display data, which has become analog data again after passing through the D/A converter 705, is transferred to each TFT-
It is transferred to the LCD 706. The address at the time of reading is determined according to the memory 711 programmed in advance. 712 is a microcomputer that controls the image memory and program memory. Also 710
is the address bus for that purpose. Each TPT-LCD has an analog data latch circuit, and the front circuit 70
7 has been installed. Here, data for one line corresponding to the display area is latched. This is transferred to the selected Y line in accordance with the timing on the Y side. A Y scanning circuit 708 performs this. Methods of selection timing on the Y side include a method of sequentially selecting Y lines of a plurality of TFT-LCDs and a method of selecting Y lines of each TFT-LCD in parallel. The latter method is advantageous in that it allows a longer time for one Y line to be selected and further reduces the number of wirings to the LCD. 709 is a timing setting circuit on the Y side. This method has the advantage of increasing the operating duty of the LCD and increasing the selection time per pixel. Furthermore, as shown below, there is the advantage that display data in memory can be accessed randomly and complex fiber arrangements can be accommodated. This could be, for example, a fiber east configuration in which the fibers are interlaced arbitrarily. The addresses at this time are given in accordance with the order in which the inverse transformation matrix is programmed by measuring the properties of the optical image transfer matrix of the optical fiber bundle. As a result, as shown in FIG. 8, pixels 801 that are adjacent to each other on the display surface can be arranged 802 at random on the incident surface. This uses the characteristics of the LCD matrix to change the arrangement of the fibers, and can suppress the occurrence of boundaries based on specific rules and the occurrence of unevenness in the amount of light based on the intensity distribution of the light generating part.

Further, by using a plurality of image forming means, there is an effect that the aspect ratio of the image forming means can be determined regardless of the aspect of the displayed image.

[Example 2] FIG. 9 shows an overall view of a light guiding type display device of the present invention. A diagonal line 901 indicates one unit constituting the screen, and the units have a structure in which they intersect with each other at the image output end 902 of the light guide serving as the screen in order to improve the uniformity of the screen. Furthermore, 904 is a support body for the units, and each unit is housed in an insertion space of the support body. In addition, a broken line 903 in the figure indicates the upper and lower ranges actually used for display,
The floor plan indicated by the broken line is masked. FIG. 10 is a cutaway view of the unit taken out. 100+ is the other end face of the optical fiber 1002, which is an image input end.

1003 is an optical shutter which is an image forming means, and in this embodiment, an LCD is used. 1004 is a light source device for projecting light. Note that the light source, LCD control circuit, drive circuit, etc. are omitted in the figure for simplicity. Furthermore, although an example in which fiber bundles are interlaced is given here, it is of course possible that the entrance surface and the exit surface are similar.

The light guide used in the present invention is a plastic fiber. By alternately shifting the bundled fiber bundles on the output surface side, the arrangement on the output surface was made to be intertwined. Furthermore, the output end has a structure that is directly exposed from the housing of the unit, and this part is firmly glued to eliminate flexibility and is connected to the optical shutter. The fiber bundle on the incident surface side is not shifted and has a rectangular cross section. This entrance surface with a rectangular cross section corresponds to the rectangular display surface of the optical shutter.

Therefore, it is assumed that the information incident on the fiber from the optical shutter side is shifted inversely in accordance with the shift of the output end. This will correct the displayed information. This is because an LCD consisting of matrix pixels allows accurate positioning.

Furthermore, it is also possible to make one fiber correspond to a large number of pixels. In this case, even if information is missing for about one pixel, it has the advantage that the effect on the output is small.

In this example, the units shown in Table 2 were formed in this manner.

Table 2 Fiber Plastic Fiber 0.5nr
m Outer diameter exit surface versus entrance surface Linear expansion ratio 5:11/6 shift, RGB mixed transmission Input surface Compressed rectangular fiber East rectangular cross section Number of pixels 100X100 (R, G, B trio unit) Number of fibers 100X 100 Optical shutter Matrix LCD 100x300 (per pixel) Light source: The LCD installed in the 250W halogen lamp unit is driven in the same manner as in Example 1.

=11- [Embodiment 3] FIG. 11 shows another embodiment of the light guide type display device of the present invention. 1101 is a fiber east which is an enlarging optical system within the unit, and 1102 is an image input end on the other end face. 1
103 is an LCD which is an image forming means, and 1104 is a light source device. The difference from Example 1.2 is that the LCD is not directly installed at the image input end, but the image is input via an imaging optical system 1104. In this embodiment as well, the image forming apparatus constituting the unit is driven in the same manner as in the first embodiment.

By coupling the image forming portion using the optical shutter with the fiber through the coupling optical system in this manner, a light guide type display device that is bright, has higher resolution, and has excellent display quality can be obtained.

Although the embodiments have been described above, the present invention can be widely applied not only to the above embodiments but also to self-luminous image forming apparatuses, for example, light guiding type display apparatuses using CRTs and the like.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to use a small-scale image forming apparatus and provide a low-cost system. Furthermore, when an LCD is used, it is also possible to use a light source device with low power. Furthermore, since small-scale devices manufactured to standard specifications are stacked together, it is possible to further reduce costs. Furthermore, it is easy to unitize and can be adapted to any scale. In the event of a failure, the unit can be removed and repaired, and replacement can be easily performed, which has the effect of improving maintainability.

Furthermore, the data transfer rate to the image forming apparatus can be lowered, and the number of wirings can be further reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall view of the light guiding type display device of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the incident surface when a plurality of LCDs are connected to a fiber. Figure 3 is a wiring diagram of L'CD. FIG. 4 is a drive circuit diagram of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a drive circuit when a plurality of TPT-LCDs are used. FIG. 6 is a circuit block diagram of parallel transmission according to the present invention. FIG. 7 is a circuit block diagram when using a TPT-LCD. FIG. 8 is a circuit block diagram in the case of random address. FIG. 9 is an overall view of the light guiding type display device of the present invention. FIG. 10 is a cutaway view of the unit taken out. FIG. 11 is another overall view of the light guide type display device of the present invention. 101...Block 102...Image input end 103...Light guide! 04... Optical shutter 105... Light source device 201... Multiple incident surfaces 202... LCD 203... Driver circuit board 301... X side scanning circuit 302... Y side scanning circuit 303...LCD 401...Display data 402...Timing signal 403...LCD X-side scanning circuit 404...LCD Y-side scanning circuit 501.101...Video signal 502.702...・A/D converter 503, 703...Frame memory 504, '70
4...Timing generation circuit 505.705...D/
A converter 506.706...TPT-LCD 507, 70? ...X scanning circuit 508.708...Y scanning circuit 509, 709...Y side timing generation circuit 601.
...Display memory 602...Serial display data 603...LCD 604...Data bus 605...CPU 710...Address bus 711...Program memory 712...Image memory 801... Adjacent pixels on the display surface 802...Example of pixel arrangement on the incident surface 901...Unit 902...Image output end 903...Display range 904...Support 1001...Image input end 1002... Optical fiber 1003... Optical shutter 1004... Light source device 1101... Fiber bundle 1102... Image input end 1103... LCD 1104... Light source device and above Applicant: Seiko Epson Corporation Figure 1, Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 8 Figure 9

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A light guide type display device characterized in that a screen is formed by a plurality of image forming means. (2) The light guide type display device according to item 1, wherein the image forming means are driven in parallel. (3) A first method characterized in that the display data of the image forming means is distributed to each image forming means as serial data.
The light guide type display device described in . (4) The light guide type display device according to item 1, wherein the display data of the image forming means is provided from an image memory that is randomly accessed.