US Patent 7562985 Mirror assembly with integrated display device

A mirror assembly (18) for displaying an image (15) in conjunction with the reflection (14′) of a viewer comprises a mirror (2), which is equipped with a reflective polariser (13), arranged to reflect light (3) incident on its viewing side and transmit light (4) incident on its non-viewing side, where the reflected light (3) and transmitted light (4) may be of different polarization. The image (15) is displayed by a device (5) located on the non-viewing side and focused by a focusing element, e.g. one or more lenses (12, 12a), onto an image plane. The image plane may be located between the mirror (2) and viewer (14), so that a perceived image (15′) appears to stand out from the mirror (2). Alternatively, the image plane may be located so that the perceived image (15′) forms a background in which the viewer's reflection (14′) is immersed. The mirror assembly (1) may further comprise one or more detectors (19) for obtaining a silhouette (21) of the viewer (14). The silhouette (21) can be subtracted from an image (15) to produce a modified image (24) for display by device (5), thereby avoiding competition between the perceived image (15′) and viewer reflection (14).