A short history of camera obscuras:

In the mid sixteenth century Giovanni Battista della Porta is reported to have made a huge "camera" in which he seated his guests, having arranged for a group of actors to perform outside so that the visitors could observe the images on the wall. The story goes, however, that the sight of upside down performing images was too much for the visitors; they panicked and fled, and Battista was later brought to court on a charge of sorcery.

The Camera Obscura (Latin for "dark room") is a dark box or room with a hole in one end. If the hole is small enough, an inverted image can be seen on the opposite wall.  Glass lenses were fitted into the holes late in the sixteenth century.  The image that appears shows the colors, distance and motion of what is happening outside the camera: people moving, trees bending in the wind, cars driving by, clouds floating overhead.

The first cameras were enormous.  Some had an outer shell with lenses in the center of each wall, and an inner shell containing transparent paper for drawing; the artist needed to enter by a trap door.  Other versions also appeared. Tent-type cameras were also in use - even up to the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. Visual artists have used camera obscuras as drawing aids since the sixteenth century, focusing an image on a piece of paper and using it to recreate the natural shapes and colors. Camera Obscuras were the world's first technology for perceiving space, for visualizing with other than the naked eye.

It has lately been in the news with a controversial debate over whether Dutch master painters used this technology to paint with perspectives and detail not seen prior to that time period. The artist David Hockney has been giving lectures in support of the theory that

Vermeer et al used this technology to enhance their painting. From that historical period up until the invention of photography, Camera Obscuras have been a part of the history of imaging and perception.