The camera lucida was invented by William Hyde Wollaston in 1807, but the concept was mentioned as early as 1611 by German Scientist Johannes Kepler.

The design changed very little during the 19th and 20th centuries. And the camera lucida experienced waves of popularity among well known and amateur artists.

Interest in the camera lucida increased in 2001 when artist David Hockney published "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters". He argued that great artists of the past, such as Ingres, Jan Vermeer and Michelangelo Caravaggio used camera lucidas and similar devices to help create some of their masterpieces. While this shed light on the classic camera lucida; it did not address the traditional problems with the device: a small, dim, unstable image and a very high price tag.

Then in 2005, a young artist/inventor (named Les Cookson) started to work on ways to improve the camera lucida. After four years of working with, researching, experimenting and building camera lucidas, selling his various creations to artist all over the world in order to fund his efforts and test the effectiveness of his work and incorporating the input and ideas he got into his efforts, he finally created a camera lucida that solved all of the problems with the traditional camera lucida. He dubbed his ultimate camera lucida: the LUCID-Art.

The Lost Secrets of the Old Masters:

This is a very interesting interview with David Hockney, where he explains and demonstrates the use of camera obscuras and camera lucidas in the artwork of the Old Masters chronicled in his book “Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters”.