I've not seen the film but I have heard Penn discuss it to some extent and I believe he has made it clear that the idea in a general sense and certainly in part

I've not seen the film but I have heard Penn discuss it to some extent and I believe he has made it clear that the idea in a general sense and certainly in particular to the use of a camera obscura well predate Tim's interest. Where Tim goes further than any example I'm aware of is in actually implementing and spending a significant amount of time testing a specific implementation to which Vermeer can reasonably be expected to have had access.