The griding machine: Albrecht Dürer.

Albrecht Dürer, famed for his superb draftsmanship, made use of a number of "drawing engines" to study perspective and obtain true likenesses of the foreshortened forms.

Using this machine, sighting from a fixed point, he would look through a grid of strings and transfer what he saw onto his drawing surface, which carried a similar grid.

Replace the 3D object with a 2D sketch or photo and you will see that Dürer was using a precursor of the now common grid method of sizing up (or down).

You may have heard it suggested that the use of such contrivances in some way diminishes the "art". I strongly disagree with this. Had Dürer had the use of a camera to convert his three-dimensional forms to more manageable two-dimensions, he would have used it. It´s a medium to make it faster, nor easier.

Later, Jan Veermer uses the Camera Obscura to paint some of the most beautiful paintings in Art History.
 Girl with a Red Hat.

It´s only 12 x 16 inches!