An app developed by Cornell researchers uses augmented reality to help users repeatedly capture images from the same location with a phone or tablet to make time-lapse videos – without leaving a camera on site. Time-lapse photography, which involves combining photos taken over long periods of time, provides a powerful way to visualize phenomena such as changing seasons or the movement of the sun. Traditionally, photographers would leave a camera on a tripod for the duration of the event, but researchers in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, have developed a more convenient method. Their iOS app, ReCapture, is now freely available in the Apple app store.
The researchers believe this is the first application designed for creating time-lapse videos from handheld devices. The app has three capture modes that cover a range of scenarios. One works best for landscapes, one helps capture close-up scenes and a third collects a range of images that can be used to reconstruct the scene in 3D offline. Each capture mode uses different information about the scene. The simplest mode uses an overlay of previous shots to help the user line up new photos. For close-up scenes, which tend to be more difficult to capture, the application tries to figure out where the camera is in 3D space and uses arrows to tell the user how to move and tilt their phone toward the correct location.
More information:
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/11/app-creates-time-lapse-videos-smartphone