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A zograscope is an optical device for magnifying flat pictures that also has the property of enhancing the sense of the depth perception shown in the picture. It consists of a large magnifying lens through which the picture is viewed. Devices containing only the lens are sometimes referred to as . Other models have the lens mounted on a stand in front of an angled mirror. This allows someone to sit at a table and to look through the lens at the picture flat on the table. Pictures viewed in this way need to be left-right reversed; this is obvious in the case of writing. A print made for this purpose, typically with extensive graphical projection perspective, is called a vue d'optique or "perspective view".
Zograscopes were popular during the later half of the 18th century as parlour entertainments. Most existing ones from that time are fine furniture, with turned stands, mouldings, brass fittings, and fine finishes.
According to Michael Quinion, the origin of the term is lost, but it is also known as a diagonal mirror, as an optical pillar machine, or as an optical diagonal machine. Worldwidewords.org
In Japan, the zograscope became known as 和蘭眼鏡 (, 'Dutch glasses') or 覗き眼鏡 ( 'peeping glasses'), and the pictures were known as 眼鏡絵 (, 'optique picture') 繰絵 ( 'tricky picture').
/ref> Optiques incorporated a mirror but lacked any simple means of varying the distance of the lens from the image.
Koenderink et al. (2013) showed that viewing photographs with a zograscope allowed observers to see depicted objects, such as Rodin's Danaid (Rodin), in objectively measured depth.
A zograscope makes a realistic experience for someone looking through it is by enhancing depth perception. One way is by minimizing other Depth perception that specify the flatness and pictorial nature of the picture. The image is magnified, perhaps giving it a visual angle similar to the real scene the picture is depicting. The edges of the picture are blocked by the frame of the lens. The light coming from the lens to the human eye is collimated, preventing accommodation. In early prints of interior scenes, some objects were hand-tinted with saturated colors whereas the background was tinted with "a pale wash" exploiting color contrast as a depth cue.
A second way a zograscope could enhance depth perception is by creating stereopsis. Because each eye views the image from a different position, the surface of the picture could have binocular disparity from different magnification for the two eyes or from differences in the rotation of the images received by the eyes, so-called cyclodisparity. Such disparities create an overall slant of the picture surface around the vertical meridianOgle, K. N. (1950). Researchers in binocular vision. New York: Hafner Publishing Company. or horizontal meridian respectively. As well, coloured parts of the image will be refracted differently for each eye, creating a version of chromostereopsis. Even if the binocular disparity were incorrect for the surface of the image or any coloured parts of it, the stereoscopic information tends to integrate with the other depth information in the image.
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