WORKING OF A PROJECTOR

COMPUTER PROJECT
By Alayna Baptista.
*What is a Projector?
* A projector or image projector is an optical
device that projects an image (or moving
images) onto a surface, commonly a
projection screen. Most projectors create an
image by shining a light through a small
transparent lens, but some newer types of
projectors can project the image directly, by
using lasers.
*Evolution of the Projector
*Prehistory to 1100
* Projectors share a common history with camera in the camera
obscura. Camera obscura (Latin for "dark room") is the natural
optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of a scene at the
other side of a screen (or for instance a wall) is projected through
a small hole in that screen to form an inverted image (left to right
and upside down) on a surface opposite to the opening.
* The earliest projection of images was most likely done in primitive
shadowgraphy dating back to prehistory.
* The oldest known objects that can project images are Chinese
magic mirrors. The origins of these mirrors have been traced back
to the Chinese Han dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD)
* Revolving lanterns have been known in China as "trotting horse
lamps“, since before 1000 CE.
*1100 to 1500
* Concave mirrors
* The inverted real image of an object reflected by a concave
mirror can appear at the focal point in front of the mirror. In a
construction with an object at the bottom of two opposing
concave mirrors (parabolic reflectors) on top of each other, the
top one with an opening in its center, the reflected image can
appear at the opening as a very convincing 3D optical illusion.

* Fontana's lantern
* Around 1420 the Venetian scholar and
engineer Giovanni Fontana included a drawing
of a person with a lantern projecting an image
of a demon in his book about
mechanical instruments.
*1500 to 1700
* 16th to early 17th century
* Leonardo da Vinci is thought to have had a projecting lantern -
with a condensing lens, candle and chimney - based on a small
sketch from around 1515.
* Helioscope
* In 1612 Italian mathematician
Benedetto Castelli wrote
to his mentor, the Italian
astronomer, physicist,
engineer, philosopher and
mathematician Galileo
Galilei about projecting
images of the sun through a telescope invented in 1608) to study
the recently discovered sunspots.
* Steganographic mirror
* The 1645 first edition of German Jesuit
scholar Athanasius Kircher’s book
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae included a
description of his invention. The
steganographic mirror is a primitive
projection system with a focusing lens and
text or pictures painted on a concave mirror
reflecting sunlight, mostly intended for long
distance communication.
* Magic lantern
* By 1659 Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens had developed the magic
lantern, which used a concave mirror to reflect and direct as much of
the light of a lamp as possible through a small sheet of glass on which
was the image to be projected, and onward into a focusing lens at the
front of the apparatus to project the image onto a wall or screen.
* The magic lantern became a very popular medium for entertainment and
educational purposes in the 18th and 19th century.
* 1700 to 1900
* Solar microscope
* A few years before his death
in 1736 Polish-German-Dutch
physicist Daniel Gabriel
Fahrenheit reportedly
constructed a solar microscope,
which basically was a combination of the compound microscope with
camera obscura projection.
* Opaque projectors
* Swiss mathematician, physicist
astronomer, logician and
engineer Leonhard Euler
demonstrated an opaque projector,
now commonly known as an
episcope, around 1756.
It could project a clear image of
opaque images and (small) objects.
* 20th Century to Present Day
* In the early and middle parts of the
20th century, low-cost opaque
projectors were produced and
marketed as a toy for children.
* In the late 1950s and early 1960s,
overhead projectors began to be
widely used in schools and businesses.
The first overhead projector was used
for police identification work
* From the 1950s to the 1990s slide
projectors for 35 mm photographic
positive film slides were common for
presentations and as a form of
entertainment; family members and
friends would occasionally gather to view
slideshows, typically of vacation travels.
*How does it work?
* There are many kinds of projectors from the
past, but the one we will primarily be focusing
on will be LCD and DLP projectors.

* By today’s standards, LCD projectors look

obsolete, we will still give them a look, as this
was the model that set the stage for projectors
as a large-scale commodity.
 *LCD Projectors
*To understand an LCD projector, let’s start from the point
where the light beam itself begins.
*The first thing that happens is the production of an intense
beam of white light.
*The beam of light is then reflected off a group of mirrors,
which includes two dichroic mirrors.
*The dichroic mirrors have a special coating on them that
only reflects light of one type of wavelength.
*The white light hits the mirrors and each one reflects a
beam of either red, blue or green light.
*The beams of red, blue and green pass through an LCD,
which is composed of thousands of tiny pixels.
*An exciting contradiction arises here… how can a crystal be
liquid?
* An LCD is a substance that exhibits some properties of a solid
and some properties of a liquid. Tending more towards the side
of a liquid, the LCD has a unique feature where it can either
block light or allow light to pass through when electricity is
passed through it.
*In the projector, there are 3 LCD screens. The three LCD
screens are responsible for projecting the same image or
moving images on a grayscale. When the coloured light
passes through these three screens, they relay three
versions of the same scene: one tinted red, one tinted
green, and one tinted blue.
* The tinted images pass through a dichroic crystal, which leads
to the birth of a million colours!
 *DLP Projectors
* The type of projectors that replaced LCD projectors are
DLP projectors.
* These were developed in the 1980s by Texas Instruments
scientist Dr. Larry. J Hornbeck.
* DLP technology is based on a microchip known as the
digital micromirror device or DMD.
* A DMD is a chip that contains close to two million tiny mirrors
in a square grid. These mirrors are incredibly small -they are
one-fifth the diameter of a human hair! It is placed on a
microscope that is responsible for tilting the mirror mounted
on it one way or the other.
* An electronic circuit is also present, which helps in
deciding the orientation of each mirror.
* A bright source of light is then shone on the DMD and the
electronic circuit individually tilts each mirror back and
forth.
* If a mirror is tilted towards the lamp, it shines the light
towards the screen. This one mirror is representative of one
pixel.
* If a mirror is tilted away from the source of light, it cannot
reflect the bright source of light, thereby leaving the screen
space empty or dark.
* Each mirror works individually, and the two million mirrors
go on to build a high-resolution image.
* But how is the colour formed?
* To add color to the images, the DLP uses an extra bit of
technology that consists of a coloured wheel placed in the
path of the light reflected by the mirrors of the DMD.
* The wheel consists of the colours red, blue and green.
* The combination of these colours when bounced onto the
mirror and merged gives rise to an endless variety of colours
in high definition.
* Finally, a lens collects all the beams of light to produce the
final image.

So, the next time

you relax with a
bucket of popcorn
in the theatre, you
will know and
appreciate how
that movie magic
is created!
*Advantages of using a Projector
* Largest possible picture.
Front projectors generate the biggest possible image size.
You can use them to create the very large screen experience of a
commercial movie theater in your own home.
* Smaller images a great option also.
Perhaps you don't want a huge image, or maybe you don't
have space for one. If this is the case, a projector can be used to
throw a smaller image. So it can serve as an inexpensive substitute
for a 60" plasma TV.
* Low cost.
Believe it or not, a front projector can be the least expensive
alternative for big screen video in your home. Some projectors built
for dedicated home theater are much less expensive than flatscreen
TVs or rear-projection TVs.
* Space saving.
A small projector that is mounted on a coffee table,
a rear shelf or bookcase, or mounted on a ceiling, takes up
no floorspace in the room. When not operating, it is largely
invisible.
* Easy to install.
The ease of installation can vary actually. But if you
are setting up a simple system on a coffee table or a rear
bookshelf and shining it onto a white wall, it really is as easy
to set up as a simple television. They are lightweight, and
one person can pull it out of the box, hook it up and get a
picture on the wall with little trouble.
 *Disadvantages of using a
Projector
* Dark room often required.
Front projectors look their best in a darkened room, just like a
movie theater. When you view in a dark room you get maximum
contrast and sparkle in the picture.
* Maintenance required.
Most projectors require maintenance attention that flatscreen
and regular televisions do not. All projectors operate on lamps that
need to be replaced periodically every two to three years.
In addition to lamp replacement, most projectors have air
filters that need to be cleaned or replaced every couple of months.
Failure to keep filters clean can reduce lamp life and increase the
chances of dust getting into the unit and creating fuzzy spots on the
projected image.
* Rainbow artifacts.
In choosing a projector you should be aware that some users of
projectors using DLP technology can see color separation artifacts,
commonly known as rainbows, or rainbow artifacts. This is an
unfortunate side-effect of the spinning color wheel in the light engine
of a DLP projector. Most people are not sensitive to this phenomenon,
but those who are can experience it as anything from a minor
distraction to a severe flaw that makes the projector unwatchable.
* Installation can be more involved.
As noted above, the ease of installation varies based upon how
you want to set it up. If you plan to ceiling mount it, you may need to
hire some help to run power and signal cables through the walls.
Furthermore, if you are using a projection screen as well, then hooking
a fixed screen to the wall, or installing an electric retractable screen
on or in the ceiling adds further steps to the installation process.
* Separate audio system required.
Most projectors either have no audio on board, or if they do, it
is not audio you'd want to use for movie presentation. So most people
who opt for a projector are also setting up a separate surround sound
audio system to go with it.