PictoLapse

1,440 pictures. One per minute. And a picture inspired by The Time Machine.

As you view the picture from left to right, you are watching time pass. Distance is directly proportional to time. Unfortunately, sunrise is the OTHER direction, but at least you can watch the sun set...I should shoot this again to emphasize that.

Editing: about two days on a ten year old desktop. Why? Because you do NOT want to edit these by hand, and the automation script I wrote takes control of a virtual keyboard. So checking Facebook or today's Dilbert comic would be right out. So I sent it to a machine that can take all the time in the world without me caring in the slightest.

The script automatically checks for missing files as it exports slices of the final image, but can't tell how well the slices came out. For instance, one slice is blank on the left third, and I am not going to fix it, if only so I can work on other things. I also connected the old desktop to a UPS, so it could keep working if the power went out.

Now things get interesting. This is just a test for my next project: PanoLapse. July 2nd, 2012, my phone will be mounted on a robot on my roof all day. The robot will turn the camera 360 degrees over the course of the day with incredible accuracy, and enough force to tear itself apart if I hadn't already made sure it couldn't. And somehow it didn't. Most of my phone's files have been moved to my computer to save space. It will be taking a picture every 20 seconds at 5MP, portrait, in order to maximize the final resolution.

I plan to submit the panoramic time-lapse picture AND distort it into a circle, perfect for a 24-hour clock. Editing should be finished mid-July, VALVe-time. Herbert George Wells would cry if he saw this.