Google Creates Slick Time-Lapses From Images On Flickr And Elsewhere

Google researchers are constantly working on cool things that we can all enjoy. The latest cool bit of tech that Google researchers have developed is a way to automatically create time-lapse images of tourist landmarks using photos that are found on image sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa, and others. The process begins with sorting somewhere in the area of 86 million photos by geographic location.

The search is perusing the glut of images for shots of landmarks that are frequently photographed. The process then sort the photos of the landmarks by date and warps them so that they all have the same point of view. You can't make time-lapses if the point of view shifts from one photo to the next.

The last bit of the process is color correcting the images so that they all have a similar appearance. The result is what appears to be a time-lapse made by the same camera from the same exact location. So far, Google has used this process to make time-lapse images of all sorts of things from building construction to the movement of glaciers and waterfalls.

Many of the sequences that have been made so far contain over 1000 images and took about six hours to render using a single computer. Google has a slick video that shows some of the time-lapses that it made using this process and you can watch the video below.

SOURCE: Engadget