Oystein Mikkelsen, started his own photo processing and reprographic laboratory in Norway in 1974 and in 1976, having become interested in lenticular 3-D he successfully produced 3-D photographic prints for commercial applications.
It was expensive to reproduce photographic 3-D prints in large quantities, but there was obviously a vast commercial potential if a way of reproducing high quality 3-D images cheaply in quantity by conventional printing methods could be found. Mikkelsen therefore in 1977 set himself the objective of developing such a system.

In 1990 over 13 years after the work started, and with more than US$ 5 million spent on the development, he had a unique 3-D printing system that since then has been validated at every stage, and which is seen as one of the major breakthroughs in litho printing of recent times.

In 1990, The English Company Ltd. (TEC) was formed in the UK to commercially exploit the new system. Mikkelsen had led the development work throughout and was the Chairman of the Board of Directors in TEC.

TEC successfully manufactured lenticular screens, mainly for litho-printing. The printing was carried out by printers in Europe and the USA under super-vision of TEC. In 1992 deliveries to the 3-Dimension Technology Ltd., Hong Kong started.