Last week, it was reconstructing sound using tiny vibrations on objects — this week’s science wow comes from Microsoft Research, which showed off a technology that turns shaky first-person video into beautifully smooth timelapse footage.
The growth of wearable video cameras — from Google Glass to GoPro and more — has led to a boom in first-person videos, most of which are overly long and uneventful. When you speed them up into to timelapse video, however, they can become more palatable and entertaining, but a person’s movement means the footage is rarely steady. That problem is exacerbated when videos are accelerated.
Until now, perhaps. Microsoft Research has shown off the silky smooth footage that its ‘first-person hyperlapse’ technology can create.
Researchers Johannes Kopf, Michael Cohen and Richard Szeliski explain the science, which essentially reconstructs the video using a 3D camera path that takes a smoother route than the original footage. The technology renders each frame from the new viewpoint, before stitching and blending the new video together.
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Fixing GoPro or Google Glass videos may sound like a first world problem, but the technology promises to make wearable camera footage useful, which could have a huge impact on any number of industries and areas of life.
The researchers are working to pack all this goodness into a Windows app, but they give no timeframe for when it will be released.
Related: This is what happens when you duct tape a GoPro camera to your car’s tire
Headline image via Philippe Desmazes / AFP / Getty Images
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