Zoopraxiscope 16485u - Early photography, Public domain image

Zoopraxiscope is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879 (and built for him by January 1880 to project his famous chronophotographic pictures in motion and thus prove that these were authentic). Muybridge used the projector in his public lectures from 1880 to 1895. The projector used 16" glass disks onto which Muybridge had an unidentified artist paint the sequences as silhouettes. This technique eliminated the backgrounds and enabled the creation of fanciful combinations and additional imaginary elements. Only one disk used photographic images, of a horse skeleton posed in different positions. A later series of 12″ discs, made in 1892–1894, used outlines drawn by Erwin F. Faber that were printed onto the discs photographically, then colored by hand. These colored discs were probably never used in Muybridge's lectures. All images of the known 71 disks, including those of the photographic disk, were rendered in elongated form to compensate the distortion of the projection. The projector was related to other projecting phenakistiscopes and used some slotted metal shutter discs that were interchangeable for different picture disks or different effects on the screen. The machine was hand-cranked.

The phenakistiscope is an early animation device invented in 1832 by the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau. It consists of a spinning disc with a series of images or drawings arranged around the edge, and a viewing window through which the images can be seen. When the disc is spun and viewed through the window, the images appear to move, creating the illusion of animation. The phenakistiscope was one of the earliest forms of animation and paved the way for later inventions such as the zoetrope and the modern film projector.