Folioscopio


Example of animation in a folioscope.

A folioscope is a book that contains a series of images that vary gradually from page to page, so that when the pages are passed quickly, the images appear to animate by simulating a movement or other change. They are usually illustrated by children, but they can also be oriented towards adults and use a series of animations. Origin

The first evidence we have of a mechanism like this is the motuscope (from the Latin motus, movement and from the Greek "skopein", contemplate) of Philippe Jacob Lautenburger. Lautenburger was an artist who in 1760 made a notebook in which he drew on the odd pages an image. On each page appeared the same figure in different phases of a movement. Passing the pages of the notebook quickly produced the illusion of movement of the figure. This was also achieved by the fact that all the figures had the same size and occupied the same place in the respective pages.

Based on this same mechanism, in 1898 Henry William Short patented the phil- noescope, changing in this case the drawings by photographs. This mechanism was commercialized with the leaves of the notebook inserted in a small box of wood that maintained them on the one hand pressed, activating the mechanism of automated form when pressing a small lever. Functionality

Folioscopes are essentially a primitive form of animation. Like a motion picture film, they rely on retinal persistence to create the illusion of continuous motion rather than a series of successive discontinuous images. Instead of reading from left to right, the viewer simply fixes the view in the same place of the image as the pages are flipped. The book must also be traveled with sufficient speed to create the illusion, so the normal way to see it is to have the folioscope with one hand and turning the pages with the thumb of the other hand; for that reason the term film of thumb has been coined that reflects this process.

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