There probably existed quite a few other types of projectors than the examples described below, but evidence is scarce and reports are often unclear about their nature. Spectators did not always provide the details needed to differentiate between for instance a
shadow play and a
lantern projection. Many did not understand the nature of what they had seen and few had ever seen other comparable media. Projections were often presented or perceived as magic or even as religious experiences, with most
projectionists unwilling to share their secrets.
Joseph Needham sums up some possible projection examples from China in his 1962 book series
Science and Civilization in China. Prehistory to 1100 Shadow play The earliest projection of images was most likely done in primitive
shadowgraphy dating back to prehistory. Shadow play usually does not involve a projection device, but can be seen as a first step in the development of projectors. It evolved into more refined forms of
shadow puppetry in Asia, where it has a long history in Indonesia (records relating to
Wayang since 840 CE), Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, China (records since around 1000 CE), India, and Nepal.
Camera obscura illustrating the principle of camera obscura: light rays from an object pass through a small hole to form an inverted image. s in the
Castelgrande in Bellinzona Projectors share a common history with
cameras 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 oldest known record of this principle is a description by
Han Chinese philosopher
Mozi (ca. 470 to ca. 391 BC). Mozi correctly asserted that the camera obscura image is inverted because
light travels in straight lines. In the early 11th century,
Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) described experiments with light through a small opening in a darkened room and realized that a smaller hole provided a sharper image.
Chinese magic mirrors 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) and are also found in Japan. The mirrors were cast in bronze with a pattern embossed at the back and a
mercury amalgam laid over the polished front. The pattern on the back of the mirror is seen in a projection when light is reflected from the polished front onto a wall or other surface. No trace of the pattern can be discerned on the reflecting surface with the naked eye, but minute undulations on the surface are introduced during the manufacturing process and cause the reflected rays of light to form the pattern. It is very likely that the practice of image projection via drawings or text on the surface of mirrors predates the very refined ancient art of the magic mirrors, but no evidence seems to be available.
Revolving lanterns Revolving lanterns have been known in China as "trotting horse lamps" [走馬燈] since before 1000 CE. A trotting horse lamp is a hexagonal, cubical, or round lantern which on the inside has cut-out
silhouettes attached to a shaft with a paper vane impeller on top, rotated by heated air rising from a lamp. The silhouettes are projected on the thin paper sides of the lantern and appear to chase each other. Some versions showed some extra motion in the heads, feet and/or hands of figures by connecting them with a fine iron wire to an extra inner layer that would be triggered by a transversely connected iron wire. The lamp would typically show images of horses and horse-riders. In France, similar lanterns were known as "lanterne vive" (
bright or
living lantern) in medieval times. and as "lanterne tournante" since the 18th century. An early variation was described in 1584 by
Jean Prevost in his small
octavo book
La Premiere partie des subtiles et plaisantes inventions. In his "lanterne", cut-out figures of a small army were placed on a wooden platform rotated by a cardboard propeller above a candle. The figures cast their shadows on translucent, oiled paper on the outside of the lantern. He suggested to take special care that the figures look lively: with horses raising their front legs as if they were jumping and soldiers with drawn swords, a dog chasing a hare, etcetera. According to Prevost barbers were skilled in this art and it was common to see these night lanterns in their shop windows. A more common version had the figures, usually representing grotesque or devilish creatures, painted on a transparent strip. The strip was rotated inside a cylinder by a tin impeller above a candle. The cylinder could be made of paper or of sheet metal perforated with decorative patterns. Around 1608
Mathurin Régnier mentioned the device in his
Satire XI as something used by a
patissier to amuse children. Régnier compared the mind of an old nagger with the lantern's effect of birds, monkeys, elephants, dogs, cats, hares, foxes and many strange beasts chasing each other.
John Locke (1632–1704) referred to a similar device when wondering if ideas are formed in the human mind at regular intervals,"not much unlike the images in the inside of a lantern, turned round by the heat of a candle." Related constructions were commonly used as Christmas decorations in England and parts of Europe. A still relatively common type of rotating device that is closely related does not really involve light and shadows, but it simply uses candles and an impeller to rotate a ring with tiny figurines standing on top. Many modern electric versions of this type of lantern use all kinds of colorful transparent cellophane figures which are projected across the walls, especially popular for nurseries.
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. The earliest description of projection with concave mirrors has been traced back to a text by French author
Jean de Meun in his part of
Roman de la Rose (circa 1275). A theory known as the
Hockney-Falco thesis claims that artists used either concave mirrors or refractive lenses to project images onto their canvas/board as a drawing/painting aid as early as circa 1430. It has also been thought that some encounters with spirits or gods since antiquity may have been conjured up with (concave) mirrors.
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 "Bellicorum Instrumentorum Liber". The Latin text "Apparentia nocturna ad terrorem videntium" (Nocturnal appearance to frighten spectators)" clarifies its purpose, but the meaning of the undecipherable other lines is unclear. The lantern seems to simply have the light of an oil lamp or candle go through a transparent cylindrical case on which the figure is drawn to project the larger image, so it probably could not project an image as clearly defined as Fontana's drawing suggests.
Possible 15th century image projector In 1437 Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and
cryptographer Leon Battista Alberti is thought to have possibly projected painted pictures from a small closed box with a small hole, but it is unclear whether this actually was a projector or rather a type of show box with transparent pictures illuminated from behind and viewed through the hole.
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. In his
Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531–1533)
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa claimed that it was possible to project "images artificially painted, or written letters" onto the surface of the Moon with the means of moonbeams and their "resemblances being multiplied in the air".
Pythagoras would have often performed this trick. In 1589
Giambattista della Porta published about the ancient art of projecting mirror writing in his book
Magia Naturalis. Dutch inventor
Cornelis Drebbel, who is a likely inventor of the microscope, is thought to have had some kind of projector that he used in magical performances. In a 1608 letter he described the many marvelous transformations he performed and the apparitions that he summoned by the means of his new invention based on optics. It included giants that rose from the earth and moved all their limbs very lifelike. The letter was found in the papers of his friend
Constantijn Huygens, father of the likely inventor of the magic lantern
Christiaan Huygens.
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. Galilei wrote about Castelli's technique to the German Jesuit priest, physicist, and astronomer Christoph Scheiner.
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: 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. He saw limitations in the increase of size and diminished clarity over a long distance and expressed his hope that someone would find a method to improve on this. Kircher also suggested projecting live flies and shadow puppets from the surface of the mirror. The book was quite influential and inspired many scholars, probably including Christiaan Huygens who would invent the magic lantern. Kircher was often credited as the inventor of the magic lantern, although in his 1671 edition of
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae Kircher himself credited Danish mathematician Thomas Rasmussen Walgensten for the magic lantern, which Kircher saw as a further development of his own projection system. Although Athanasius Kircher claimed the Steganographic mirror as his own invention and wrote not to have read about anything like it, In 1654 Belgian Jesuit mathematician
André Tacquet used Kircher's technique to show the journey from China to Belgium of Italian Jesuit missionary
Martino Martini. It is sometimes reported that Martini lectured throughout Europe with a magic lantern which he might have imported from China, but there's no evidence that anything other than Kircher's technique was used.
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 (Huygens apparatus actually used two additional lenses). He did not publish nor publicly demonstrate his invention as he thought it was too frivolous. The magic lantern became a very popular medium for entertainment and educational purposes in the 18th and 19th century. This popularity waned after the introduction of cinema in the 1890s. The magic lantern remained a common medium until
slide projectors came into widespread use during the 1950s.
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 was a combination of the compound microscope with camera obscura projection. It needed bright sunlight as a light source to project a clear magnified image of transparent objects. Fahrenheit's instrument may have been seen by German physician
Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn who introduced the instrument in England, where optician
John Cuff improved it with a stationary optical tube and an adjustable mirror. In 1774 English instrument maker
Benjamin Martin introduced his "Opake Solar Microscope" for the enlarged projection of opaque objects. He claimed: The solar microscope was employed in experiments with photosensitive
silver nitrate by
Thomas Wedgwood in collaboration with
Humphry Davy in making the first, but impermanent, photographic enlargements. Their discoveries, regarded as the earliest deliberate and successful form of photography, were published in June 1802 by Davy in his
An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of Making Profiles, by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, Esq. With Observations by H. Davy in the first issue of the
Journals of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
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. French scientist
Jacques Charles is thought to have invented a similar "megascope" in 1780, using it for his lectures. Around 1872
Henry Morton used an opaque projector in demonstrations for huge audiences, for example in the Philadelphia Opera House which could seat 3500 people. His machine did not use a condenser or reflector, but used an
oxyhydrogen lamp close to the object in order to project huge clear images.
Solar camera See main article:
Solar camera Known equally, though later, as a solar enlarger, the
solar camera is a photographic application of the solar microscope, and an ancestor of the darkroom
enlarger. It was used mostly by portrait photographers and as an aid to portrait artists in the mid-to-late 19th century to make photographic enlargements from negatives using the Sun as a light source powerful enough to expose the then available low-sensitivity photographic materials. It was superseded in the 1880s when other light sources, including the
incandescent bulb, were developed for the darkroom enlarger and materials became ever more photo-sensitive.
20th century to present day on a building In the early and middle parts of the 20th century, low-cost opaque projectors were produced and marketed as a toy for children. The light source in early opaque projectors was often
limelight, with
incandescent light bulbs and
halogen lamps taking over later. Episcopes are still marketed as artists' enlargement tools to allow images to be traced on surfaces such as prepared canvas. 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. It used a celluloid roll over a 9-inch stage allowing facial characteristics to be rolled across the stage. The United States military in 1940 was the first to use it in quantity for training. 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. Multi-image productions are also known as multi-image slide presentations,
slide shows and diaporamas and are a specific form of
multimedia or
audio-visual production.
Digital cameras had become commercialized by 1990, and in 1997
Microsoft PowerPoint was updated to include image files, accelerating the transition from 35 mm slides to digital images, and thus digital projectors, in pedagogy and training. Production of all Kodak Carousel slide projectors ceased in 2004, and in 2009 manufacture and processing of Kodachrome film was discontinued.
Developments since 2020 Since 2020, projector technology has advanced significantly: •
Laser light sources have become mainstream, offering longer lifespans, higher brightness, and wider color gamuts. •
4K resolution is now standard in home theaters, while
8K resolution is emerging in high-end markets. •
Smart projectors integrate operating systems, streaming apps, and voice assistants, enhancing user convenience. •
Ultra Short Throw (UST) technology enables large-screen projection in limited spaces. • Improvements in
HDR and wide color gamut technologies have significantly enhanced image quality. •
Portable projectors have seen advancements in size, battery life, and features like auto-focus and keystone correction. •
Gaming projectors focus on low input lag and high refresh rates for immersive gaming experiences. • Environmental and energy-saving technologies are prioritized, with efficient light sources and power-saving modes. • Projectors are increasingly used in
AR and VR applications for education, training, and entertainment. •
AI technology is integrated for features like auto-focus, image optimization, and voice control. == In popular culture ==