Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision is a technique used by animators were an image appears to be moving when in actual fact it isn't. It is done by quickly playing a group of separate images in a sequence. By making the after image of each photo slightly different than the previous it creates the illusion that the image is moving. A very early example of this is the 'zoetrope' which uses the same concept. It is basically a group of images inside of a machine which are flicked through rapidly to create the animation.

Here is an example of a zoetrope, one of the most early forms of animation. As you ca see each image on the wheel is followed by an image after it. each image has a slight change within it such as a character moving forward slightly. When all of this images are played rapidly in a sequence it gives the illusion that they are all on single moving image. When in actual fact, it is just a series of individual images which give the illusion of movement when played after one another.