Ignazio Porro

Ignazio Porro ( born November 25, 1801 in Pinerolo, † October 8, 1875 in Milan ) was an Italian engineer and inventor of the eponymous Porro prism used in binoculars and stereo microscopes.

Military time

Ignazio Porro was the son of an engineer - lieutenant of the Italian Army. Also Ignazio entered as an artillery cadet in the Italian army. During his military service he worked in land surveying and made numerous improvements to geodetic systems. Since 1839, he described his optical systems for land surveying as " tacheometer " and defined the concept of Surveying. In 1842 he retired with the rank of a major in the reserve of the military service.

Workshops in Turin and Paris

As a civilian Porro founded a workshop in Turin. Five years later he moved to Paris, where he founded the "Institute technomatique ". There he constructed in 1847 an asymmetric camera - lens system which improved the image quality on the screen. He recommended the use of telephoto lenses to photograph distant subjects in the early 1850s.

Porro in 1854 was granted a patent for his most famous invention, the reversal and diversion, with the patent, " Certain applications of total or ordinary reflection of light on transparent surfaces alone or in conjunction with refraction " in France and England.

Based on the Porro prism Porro developed the monocular binoculars, the " Longue- Vue cornets ." As a further type of such binoculars the " Lunette Napoleon III " were developed and personally on February 22, 1855 Emperor Napoleon III. presented.

Teaching in Florence and Milan

In 1861 he returned to Italy and taught tachymetry in Florence. The Technical University in Milan in 1863 he was appointed professor of surveying (geodesy ). In the same year Porro founded the company " Tecnomasio italiano " and two years later, in Milan the " Filotecnica ". Until his death he could draw no appreciable economic benefit from his numerous inventions. The scientific recognition remained to him during his lifetime and after his death, denied. When Ernst Abbe in 1893 itself was patented an optical inversion system, he found to his surprise that he, by decades had anticipated Porro, of which he had until then never heard anything.