METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INDEPENDENTLY ILLUMINATING MORE THAN ONE AREA OF OBJECT

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system which illuminates a plurality of areas on an object such as a printer drum independently. SOLUTION: A system includes at least one light source 12 such as LED. A spatial light modulator 14 which may be a movable mirror device receives light from the light source 12 and reflects selected portions of the light. The modulator 14 includes at least n rows of independently modulated pixels and can receive and reflects light only 1/n of each row at any point of time. The light from the modulator 14 is imaged (e.g. with imaging lens 24) onto rows and columns of an object 26 to be illuminated. The object 26 is illuminated so that each column is illuminated by a corresponding row of pixels.