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(11) | EP 0 911 791 A2 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | Graphic information display panel |
| (57) This consists of a sheet (1) provided with the graphic images to be displayed, complemented
with a transparent sheet (2) the surface of which facing (3) the actual sheet (1)
is provided with a succession of axially juxtaposed semi-cylindrical relieves (4),
whereas the opposite face is totally plane. The display sheet consists of strips with the same breadth as the optical semi-cylinders with which the transparent sheet is provided. The optical effect caused by the various semi-cylindrical surfaces and depending upon the viewing angle to the plane of paper, allows one of the graphic images arranged on the display sheet to be observed and not so the remainder. |
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates to a graphic image display panel consisting of a multicellular cylindrical lens plate with either of its two faces placed before a graphic pattern arranged in the focal plane of the lenses.
[0002] The object of the invention is to provide a panel to be used as a means enabling the display of either two, three or even more different images contained in the same panel following one another in the same site as the observing angle varies, or animated images, which are static in both cases with respect to the panel (panels used statically or "static use") or, otherwise, the showing of images accompanying the observer as the observer moves, i.e. images that move with respect to the panel ("mobile use"). In the latter case, a continuous series of juxtaposed panels or a longer albeit otherwise similar panel should conveniently be used.
[0003] The above-described alternatives in use are all for optical plates and panels having a similar design and the provision of sundry effects will be solely dependent on the graphic pattern fitted in the focal plane.
[0004] These panels are preferably intended to be used in the field of advertising or as a small, medium or large information display means.
[0005] Panels put to a "static use" will, for instance, have application in street advertising pillars, shop walls, banks or business premises of every description where the public gather. Panels put to a "mobile use", designed to produce the phenomenon of having the image accompany observers, will find excellent application in either underground tunnels or walking streets, namely for instance on building canopies, etc.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0006] If a multicellular plate having parallel, identical cylindrical lenses arranged side by side with a common focal plane is taken and a graphic pattern is placed in said focal plane, made up of a family of lines, in an orderly arrangement next to one another with a family for every lens, in which families every line also methodically corresponds with a sector of a different image, and provided that said lines are suitably interlaced, the field of every cylindrical lens will be fully taken up by a single line of the line family opposite the same. The plate lenses will altogether thus select only the lines corresponding with a figure with reference to a given position of the observer. Now then, as the observer moves relative to the panel, the observer will consequently view the remaining images contained in the graphic pattern on the lens-shaped plate, in accordance with the extent to which the observer moves. The images will thus gradually appear and disappear on and from the lens-shaped plate. This optical characteristic will allow a "static use" of the panel.
[0007] Furthermore, in panels designed for a "static use", the speed with which images will appear will be greater or lower under the same observation speed depending on whether the distance from which they are viewed is greater or lesser. This effect, the length of the path to be covered by an observer for a full projection, will clearly be proportional to the breadth of the lenses multiplied by the observer's distance from the lens-shaped plate and divided by the focal length.
[0008] At the same time, a sufficiently long panel or panels juxtaposed in a continuous series, with a graphic pattern located in the focal plane, consisting of whole images behind every lens, which are duly distorted to offset the deformation produced by the projection of cylindrical lenses, will show an observer moving before the same an animated or still image accompanying him, which will depend on the configuration said graphic pattern shall have been given. This optical phenomenon will give way to the form of a "mobile use" of the panel.
[0009] When whole images are arranged in the same panel behind every lens in the form of "mobile use", the image displayed will be clearly viewed when the sight is focused to infinity. This type of focus is most restful for the sight.
[0010] Moreover, the image will in this case be viewed inside the panel, at an indefinite distance, and the advantage is therefore that it will look bigger than what it really is.
[0011] The above graphic display of the panel put to a "static" use has to some extent been used to date. Indeed, the above device consists of a multilens-shaped plate with a thickness equal to the focal length, generally rangig between 1 and 2 mm. The graphic pattern is affixed to the plane face of the lens-shaped plate. This device is generally used to show two different figures, to be viewed in succession depending on the viewing angle through which they are looked at. It has been used to decorate school materials and stereoscopic stamps.
[0012] If a plate is used, the latter is very heavy and expensive, for its thickness must be the focal length. Indeed, the condition that the whole system be contained in a single plate has caused its users to use a limited number of images to be shown, generally two, for in such case the dimensions of the lenses are very small, in order to make the rear face of the plate match the focal plane, where the image must needs be situated. The radius of the lenses in a lens-shaped plate having identical cylindrical lenses is connected with the length of the focal plane, being roughly one-half of the latter. In turn, the useful part of the lens corresponds with a circular sector which must have a rather smaller chord length than the radius of said lens in order thereby to suitably use the useful lens-shaped portion. For instance, for a 2 mm thick plate, the lens radius would be around 1 mm and the maximum recommendable thickness of the circular lens sector around 0.5 mm. The users of these "optical plates", as they will be called herein, have failed to develop a technology allowing a greater number of images to be incorporated for such dimensions, nor have they dealt with the field of greater-sized figures for this same reason, which size is also necessary for the system to be used for advertising purposes, as the inventive panel is. The use of computing to prepare images with coloured lines in spaces below 1 mm had not been possible until now, for it is only recently that the print limit of 12 pixels per mm (300 DPI) or 6 pixels in 0.5 mm has been exceeded. This situation makes ½ mm insufficient to locate more than two lines of colour, for each will take more than 4 pixels to contain the four basic colours used (including magenta). In other words, in the lens-shaped spaces of the optical plates, computing would not have resolved this requirement until very recently, nor would this have been resolved photographically, which could potentially be the other viable solution.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0013] The inventive panel comprises a lens-shaped plate and a separate second sheet or plate in the focal plane, the latter designed to support the graphic pattern, being opaque or transparent, depending on whether artificial or natural incident light or rear artificial light are respectively used. The graphic pattern may be incorporated on the front face of the very plate, may also be arranged on duly stretched paper or cardboard, glued to the second plate or otherwise be held by a third transparent plate affixed to the front of the image, and acting against the aforesaid second plate.
[0014] In order to use the panels in their "static" form, designed for the display of images that do not accompany the observer, every family of lines making up the graphic pattern will have a thickness similar to that of the respective lens, which may be slightly larger or smaller than the latter depending on the corrections required to adjust the sharpness of the projection to the azimuthal effects produced in the first place by the biocularity of human beings, and, secondly, by the expedience of presenting the set of images of the graphic pattern more than once. Broadly speaking, four sufficiently sharp presentations can be expected as the observer moves. The first thing is achieved by slightly varying the breadth of the family of lines, which is determined by a simple geometric calculation, and the latter by means of an optically tolerable offsetting of the distance of the image from the lens-shaped plate, thereby for each line in the graphic pattern to be seen through four neighbouring lenses. Due to the fact that the largest viewing angle of a same family through two neighbouring is generally minimal, with the above offsetting, the images shown can altogether be seen with an excellent sharpness some four times, which is a very important effect.
[0015] Specifically, the graphic information display panel disclosed herein, which finds application in advertising sectors or as a display means for any information whatsoever, is designed, as noted before, for two different uses. The first use or "static use" is designed to show an observer moving in front of it several static images with respect to the panel, different from each other, which may be either a replacement of one image with the next or different animated images, if the change between the same is slight and appropriate. The second use or "mobile use" will be designed to present an image accompanying the observer as he moves parallel to the image, which accompaniment can be as extended and fast as may be desired, to which end it will be sufficient to have as long a panel as may be required or to arrange the panels in series, next to one another, along the desired length, thereby to obtain a film-like vision of the projected image.
[0016] The use of the panel in either form will be exclusively dependent on the design of the graphic pattern.
[0017] Structurally, the inventive panel has been designed to essentially comprise a transparent plate, one of its faces being plane and the other being formed by a succession of convex lenses (which may be cylindrical or else have the base figure of the generators making it up conform to a type of curve other than a circular curve, as the needs to display the projected images may be), lying parallel next to each other, and another sheet attached to the focal plane of the lenses, similar in size to the lens-shaped plate, designed to contain or hold the graphic pattern of the images, which pattern shall have to respect the optical tolerances closest to the focal plane of the lens-shaped plate. This second sheet or plate need not be transparent, depending on whether it is necessary to have the panel respectively fitted with incident or rear lighting. The graphic pattern will be located on the rear plate, drawn, engraved or photocopied thereon, or glued thereto or otherwise locked by a third transparent plate or solid vertical, generally metallic or plastic, elements, arranged so as not to affect the display of the images. In accordance with the shape with which the graphic panel is made, static images will be alternatively shown with respect to the panel or moving images will be shown accompanying the observer.
[0018] For the "first use" of the panel, noted in the preceding paragraph, the graphic pattern will comprise an orderly and alternate arrangement of juxtaposed line families of lines, one per lens, each line containing the mean graphic information of the sector of the whole image it replaces, located in respective order and next to another line family corresponding with the next image in the graphic representation. That is to say, the graphic pattern will consist of strips taken from each image, the first strip of the first image being juxtaposed to the first strip of the second image, to the first strip of the third image, and so on and so forth until the last strip of the last image is contained collateral with the last strip of the penultimate image.
[0019] If the panel is used to show an image accompanying an observer, so-called "mobile use", it will be sufficient for the graphic pattern to be replaced with one consisting of whole images, each containing all the graphic information corresponding with the image projected at that point, suitably distorted in order to offset the optical deformation produced by the projection of the cylindrical lenses.
[0020] Panels for a "static use" may be arranged with their lenses parallel to the line connecting with the potential observer's pupils or crosswise thereto. In other words, the lenses may in practice be vertical or horizontal. In either case, the line families of corresponding images will be provided parallel to the lenses. In the first case, the panels will preferably be vertically arranged and housed in a plane parallel to the observer's probable movement, so that he may in moving forward observe the said change of figures. In the second case, the panels will preferably be located in a plane inclined with respect to the vertical and facing the observer's direction of travel, in order that he may in moving forward, depending on the graphic pattern, perceive either the change of figures or the animation shown.
[0022] When the panel is put to its "second use", i.e. to provide an image accompanying the observer, there will also be two possible solutions for the lenses with respect to said line of sight, namely perpendicular (if used in underground tunnels, building canopies, etc.) or parallel (escalators, in which the image is presented above the observer, particularly in downward moving escalators, etc.).
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0023] In order to provide a fuller description and contribute to the complete understanding of the characteristics of this invention, in accordance with a preferred embodiment thereof, a set of drawings is attached to the present specification as an integral part thereof which, while purely illustrative and not fully comprehensive, shows the following:
[0024] Figure 1.- Shows the essential parts of the graphic display consisting of the transparent lens-shaped plate with the lenses or semi-cylinders and the sheet designed to contain the graphic pattern of the images in cross-section.
[0025] Figure 2.- Is a full representation of the additional parts required or convenient for assembling the panel, including in addition to the two essential elements of the preceding figure, a sort of separator, which is in this case a frame of requisite thickness to produce, with reference to the thickness of the transparent plate holding the graphic pattern sheet, the requisite distance between the lens-shaped plate and a sheet with the above-mentioned graphic pattern. A rear plate is also included, likewise supporting the graphic pattern, which may be opaque. These elements are all duly bolted or riveted to each other to provide a strong, manageable and easily transportable panel.
PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
[0026] The graphic information display panel subject of the invention quite simply consists of a lens-shape plate (1), one of its faces having cylindrical convex, juxtaposed, identical and parallel lenses (2) and its other face being plane, and a rear sheet (3) or "second plate" located in the focal plane or very close thereto within the optical tolerances that may allow suitably sharp images to be obtained. The graphic pattern carrying the information of the images to be displayed will be provided on one face of this sheet. These plates will be held between plates (4-4') defined arbitrarily, without their shape or condition being material. Similarly, the panels may be framed (5) if that is desired and have light boxes attached thereto at will, fixing taking place by means of bolts (6) or the like.
[0028] A first use is designed to show a series of two or more images appearing and disappearing successively for an observer (7) moving in front of the images, which images may, if suitably conformed, present either a sequential replacement of one another or an animated series; and
[0029] A second use is designed to present a mobile image for an observer (7) moving at the desired speed, indeed improving the sharpness of the presentation with the speed of such observer. The image may change as the path changes to the desired extent or may be turned into an animated presentation depending on how the relevant graphic pattern is prepared. In this case, the panel may have the desired length to obtain an extended presentation or a number of panels may similarly be arranged juxtaposed without this preventing their having a spacing therebetween, for the image shown will appear as a continuous display, because upon disappearing at the end of a panel it will appear in the next panel in the same position with respect to the observer. For greater speeds, some 40 km/h, 2 cm spacings between panels are almost invisible.
[0030] For a static use of the panel, a graphic pattern will be arranged on the second sheet. In order for static images to be obtained, the graphic pattern located in the focal plane will consist of juxtaposed line families, interlaced in an orderly succession with a family for every lens, in which each line will correspond with a sector of a different image.
[0031] Within a static use, the panels may be arranged with the lenses lying parallel to the line connecting with the observer's pupils or at a right angle thereto. This will modify the position they shall be given with respect to the observer. In the first case, they will be arranged parallel to the observer's movement and in the second case above the observer, facing the observer's direction of travel and with a suitable inclination to the vertical.
[0032] In both panel arrangements, the lines of the graphic pattern will lie parallel to those of the lenses.
[0033] For a "mobile use" of the panel, it will be sufficient to locate a graphic pattern in its focal plane, consisting of whole images behind every lens, duly distorted to offset the deformation produced by the projection of the cylindrical lenses. In this case, the panel will show an observer moving in front of the panel an accompanying image, which image may be either animated or still, depending on the configuration with which said graphic pattern is designed. The length of the panel may arbitrarily be extended to allow the necessary extension of the desired visual presentation or a number of panels may be arranged collaterally with each other.
1. A graphic information display panel, characterised in that it essentially consists
of a transparent lens-shaped plate made up of cylindrical lenses, all of which are
identical and axially juxtaposed, with a focal plane common to said cylindrical lenses,
and a display sheet or graphic pattern lying approximately within the optical tolerance
in the focal plane of the lenses, designed to display to an observer moving with respect
to the panel or a number of juxtaposed panels, depending on the graphic pattern of
the image or images to be shown and the observer's viewing angle, two, three or more
different or identical images, appearing and disappearing in succession, or an animated
series of images, or a fixed changing or animated image accompanying the observer
as the observer moves.
2. A graphic information display panel, as in claim 1, characterised in that the display
sheet or graphic pattern, wherever the image does not accompany the observer, consists
of strips with a breadth similar to that of the optical semi-cylinders or lenses of
the transparent lens-shaped plate, said strips being obtained by means of an alternating
arrangement of strips or portions of the images to be displayed, and, wherever the
image accompanies the observer, consists of whole images located behind every semi-cylinder,
with a duly compressed breadth in order to offset the deforming optical effect of
the projection of the images by the cylindrical lenses.
3. A graphic information display panel, as in preceding claims, characterised in that
the graphic pattern may optionally be affixed to a transparent plate, glued or locked
by a front and another rear plate, which latter may optionally be transparent or opaque
and separated from the lens-shaped plate by continuous or partial spacers with the
required optical thickness, or by a frame, to which the plates will all be fixed to
each other.