Praxinoscope

The praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors,[1] placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned.

Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered.

When the set was assembled inside the unfolded box, the viewer looked through a rectangular slot in the front, onto a plate with a transparent mirror surrounded by a printed proscenium.

The animated figures were printed on black strips, so they were all that was visible through the transparent mirror and appeared to be moving within the suggested space that was reflected from the background and floor cards.

[3] In 1888 Reynaud developed the Théâtre Optique, an improved version capable of projecting images on a screen from a longer roll of pictures.