If you’ve ever wanted to make your own first-person time-lapse video with a GoPro, Google Glass or similar mounted devices, but you don’t think you have the skills necessary to make it look good, this Microsoft Research project is worth some investigation.
Taking into account the fact that any video of a skydive, bike ride or mountain climbing adventure will be shaky enough to make some viewers queasy, Microsoft is working on an algorithm which can reconstruct the 3D path of the camera, optimize it for output video and then render, stitch and blend the source frames for a smooth final product.
The team calls this a hyperlapse video, and you can see the results of the project in the stunning video below.
“As can be seen from these videos, our technique does an excellent job of providing fluid camera motion while minimizing rendering artifacts,” the team writes in a technical paper.
The YouTube video is a great compilation, but there’s plenty of extra footage in the supplemental material that the team recorded for the project.
Microsoft isn’t ready to publish the algorithm quite yet, but once the project is completed, the team plans to release a Windows app for first-person videographers to use with their own videos. Be sure to check out the technical paper for a whole lot more on hyperlapse videos and how they work.
