Re: Digital image quality: new technology?

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 20:41:19 -0600
>From: P3D bob wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Digital image quality: new technology?

>>I just heard part of a radio ad for a new offering (hardware? software?
>>service? combination?) from Texas Instruments called "Digital Light."
>>The theme of the ad was "imagine this, imagine that, etc.;" one of the
>>"imagines" went something like "presentations with the quality of 35mm
>>film."  They went on to say that the "imagines" are possible today with
>>TI's "new technology" called Digital Light.  They gave a 1-888- phone
>>number, but did not mention that more information was available on the
>>Web; hard to "imagine" it would *not* be, of course, but I haven't gone
>>looking for it yet.
>>
>>Paul Talbot

>One of our TI respondees can probably supply more information, but
>I believe it's basically a system of small (*really* small) mirrors which
>are integrated into a silicon substrate and which can be pivoted to
>different directons. Being so small they can be move quite rapidly, and
>thus can produce a raster type scan image on a surface. Aim some
>lasers at them and there you go.

I haven't heard about "Digital Light", but TI has been showing projection
systems (some of them commercial products, I believe) employing what had
been called DMD or Micromirror technology. In these systems, the
micromirrors are pivoted by flexing elements on two corners, and only
the extreme positions of motion are used - the light either goes to the
screen or is diverted into a trap. Grayscales are achieved by controlling
duty cycle. The response time of the mirrors is extremely short - they are
much faster than screen phosphors (which could potentially be useful for
stereo applications). The projectors I saw didn't use lasers as light sources.

John R


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