The NeoLucida is a drawing aid that allows you to trace what you see. It is a modern reinterpretation of the Camera Lucida. Originally patented in 1807, by the 1830’s camera lucidas were everywhere. Fine artists, scientists, naturalists, explorers, archeologists, architects—all used the camera lucida for drawing in the days before photography.

It uses a prism on a flexible stand to superimpose an image of your subject onto your paper. You see your subject and your hand at the same time. Trace what you see!

For almost fifteen years, the art world has debated artist David Hockney's theory that great masters used optical drawing aids in creating their masterpieces. A Camera Lucida in particular is so effective in assisting accurate life-drawing that Hockney believed that many of the most admired drawings of the early 19th Century, such as the Neoclassical portraits of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, could only have been made with a Camera Lucida. This becomes astonishingly clear if you try one.

This was a hotly contested idea, partly because Hockney used first-hand experience to experiment with different drawing devices. And because we had to take his word for it, there was room for debate.

We wondered: if we could get everyone to try a camera lucida, we wouldn't have to take sides in the debate. People can decide for themselves if Hockney was right. But antique camera lucidas are prohibitively expensive. So we decided to make our own.

We always began the project as a way to talk about art and technology; as a way to critically examine the way art is taught in America. We asked: "What would happen if suddenly thousands of art students had this device?" We could start talking about historical relationships between art and technology. We could start talking about art education's shortcomings. We could start helping some students overcome the learning curve to drawing more expertly. 

But the NeoLucida is not just a product. It’s a provocation. In manufacturing a camera lucida for the 21st century, our aim is to stimulate interest in media archaeology—the tightly interconnected history of visual culture and imaging technologies. We want to make this remarkable device widely available to students, artists, architects, and anyone who loves to draw from life. Released from obscurity, NeoLucida entreats a generation of artists to ask: "What if you could trace what you see?" And: "How might artists in the 19th century have seen the world?" And: "How might tracing from life fit into contemporary art education?" And: "What is the historical relationship between art and technology?"

We are art professors. We have drawn all our lives, and for the past decade, collected and researched drawing methods and devices. Besides the standard literature on drawing, we collected our own vintage Camera Lucidas and used them in our work, and as primary research for design.

We prototyped the NeoLucida by using sample prisms we had made, housed in CNC machined anodized aluminum. We sought off-the-shelf parts for the gooseneck and clamp. Using standard parts from China and some custom pieces, we were confident we could produce the NeoLucida for a fraction of the cost of an antique.

After the success of the Kickstarter campaign, we went back to the design and started working with manufacturers in China to produce a better product. We created a NeoLucida that was lighter, thinner, and stronger, and developed better features like ambidextrous options. We also made accessories for a complete product right out of the box: carrying pouch, instructions, and even a pencil.

Crowdfunding also allowed us to get input from future users. We would update our 11,406 backers with images of the new clamp, the new gooseneck, and even the packaging. With that many backers, we got a lot of feedback along the way and made adjustments to finishes and details based on feedback. The result is a quality product, inexpensively made, with R&D done by two art professors with thousands of pre-launch users guiding us along the way.

The overwhelming and rapid success of the Kickstarter made us more ambitious about the project. When some backers referred to us as "professors", we noticed that what we had built was not merely a hunk of metal and glass people were buying, we were building a community of students wanting to learn about, and engage with, art and technology. We suddenly realized: "With 11,400 backers who read our updates and ask us questions, this is not a crowd-funding campaign, this is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)!" We then put together some of the aspects of the project to see that we were actually engaging in a massive open-source experiment. The NeoLucida "Project" is simultaneously: 

- Crowd-Funding (Kickstarter Campaign)
- Crowd-Learning (Through updates about history and concepts as well as the growing website with original essays and "lessons") 
- Crowd-Empowering (Open source details given away for everyone to better understand their tools)
- Crowd Laboratory (DIY and Makers will improve and hack and re-imagine our work and share it with other makers and our community). 

This is the larger project. Backers came for the product, but leave with an education and a community. When it is done, they have taken a course on art and technology history—media archeology—and get a NeoLucida to use as a graduation gift. 

More than a mere product, the project is a provocation on a large scale. Not only is the NeoLucida Project about working withe crowds, the "business model" is an experiment. The entire project—15,000 units designed, manufactured, packaged and shipped in four months—was executed by four people. And because we were crowdfunded with no middle-men in the process, we made a quality product at incredibly low costs. This was crucial to the project, because the ethic has always been about getting the NeoLucida into the hands of as many people as possible. So we Open-Source the design and offer free downloads of 3D Print versions of our parts. We workshop and demo to schools and public institutions to encourage others to hack, modify, and adapt the NeoLucida for new, user-driven applications. We are also designing a program to donate NeoLucidas to US Public Middle and High Schools and work with teachers on developing art and science curricula using the NeoLucida. And once we have their feedback, we will share a NeoLucida Teacher's Guide so others can become art teachers.

We made the NeoLucida, but the project is in the hands of tens of thousands of new users. We are merely collecting the data to build a community.