Microsoft Hyperlapse Project Aims to Make First-Person Videos Enjoyable at Last

First-person cameras, such as the ubiquitous GoPro, have been filming hours of footage from their owner’s journeys for years now. These lengthy uncut videos don’t hold much interest to most people, but a team of Microsoft Researchers are aiming to change that by using some remarkable technology they hope to release as part of an upcoming app.

Project researchers Johannes Kopf, Michael Cohen and Richard Szeliski have come up with a method to take boorishly long first-person camera footage and convert it in to hyperlapse video. The hyperlapse movies are timelapsed at 10X speed while camera shakes are smoothened beyond the capabilities of current stabilization techniques.

In order to achieve the smooth flowing motion from rough first-person footage, the software reconstructs the camera’s path on to a depth map. Then, algorithms are used to find an optimized path that the footage should be rendered in to. In order to fill in the pieces that were never captured on camera, the program will stitch, blend, and render the missing surroundings. For challenging videos, the software will create a number of options to choose from.

For a more in-depth look at what exactly is going on, the team also have a technical paper you can read off the project website and this detailed video to check out:

[via TechCrunch]