Photographing an object at regular intervals over a long time period, and then stitching the results into a timelapse video, is a great way to "speed up time" and observe slow-motion changes (for example, the growth of plants). But creating a timelapse video is hard: you have to set up a camera, make sure it can't move, and take regular shots while maintaining consistent lighting from shot to shot. The longer the observation period, the harder it is: making timelapses over a period of years is just about impossible. But by far the most difficult thing about timelapses is anticipating the change in the first place: we'd love to be able to go back in time and observe the retreat of a glacier over a period of years, but what if we didn't think there'd be enough change to observe in the first place? There's no way to go back in time and create a timelapse after the change has happened.
Or is there? A team of researchers at the University of Washington and Google has figured out a way to mine tourist photos and recombine them into a timelapse video. Images are located via GPS tags, and then image detection algorithms rescale and crop those photos into a smooth sequence. In the video below, you can see how tourist photos of a Norwegian glacier show its retreat over a 10-year period.
You can read more about the process used to create the videos in this Wired article and at the project website.
That's all for this week. See you on Monday!
Comments