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A camera obscura is a box with a small hole or slit in one side, allowing light to enter the box in just such a way that it projects an inverted (upside-down) image of the external scene onto the interior, opposite, side of the box. These were among a number of European optics-related items introduced into Japan in the [[Edo period]], originally enjoyed as curiosities and later, in the case of telescopes, microscopes, and certain other items, as vitally useful tools.

A camera obscura is a box with a small hole or slit in one side, sometimes with a lens installed, allowing light to enter the box in just such a way that it projects an inverted (upside-down) image of the external scene onto the interior, opposite, side of the box. Unlike [[perspective box]]es, which had images painted or objects inserted inside the box to create an artificial scene, the camera obscura is empty and projects inside itself an image of whatever is outside the box. These were among a number of European optics-related items introduced into Japan in the [[Edo period]], originally enjoyed as curiosities and later, in the case of telescopes, microscopes, and certain other items, as vitally useful tools.

The earliest known mention of a camera obscura imported into Japan is seen in a [[1646]] entry in the ''Dagregister'', the [[Dutch East India Company]] official logs.<ref>Timon Screech, "Rethinking the Visual Revolution in Edo," in ''Nozoite bikkuri Edo kaiga: The Scientific Eye and Visual Wonders in Edo'' のぞいてびっくり江戸絵画, Tokyo: Suntory Museum of Art (2014), 15.</ref>

The earliest known mention of a camera obscura imported into Japan is seen in a [[1646]] entry in the ''Dagregister'', the [[Dutch East India Company]] official logs.<ref>Timon Screech, "Rethinking the Visual Revolution in Edo," in ''Nozoite bikkuri Edo kaiga: The Scientific Eye and Visual Wonders in Edo'' のぞいてびっくり江戸絵画, Tokyo: Suntory Museum of Art (2014), 15.</ref>