Head-mounted image display apparatus in which a system is capable of changing aspect ratio of observed image

Abstract

A head-mounted image display apparatus which is capable of selectively displaying images of normal and wide sizes efficiently by utilizing approximately all the pixels of a display device without the need of removing an optical system and which provides a bright image at high resolution and is easy to handle. The head-mounted image display apparatus has an image display device (2) for displaying an image, and a projection optical system for projecting the image displayed on the image display device (2) onto an observer's eye. The projection optical system includes an anamorphic optical system which is composed of an anamorphic lens (3) and a cylindrical lens (4), for example. The anamorphic optical system is rotatable about the optical axis. Accordingly, it is possible to selectively observe two images of the normal and wide sizes by rotating the anamorphic optical system about the optical axis through 90.degree. in either direction.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.