How do you time-lapse document your build

[diamond]

I would like to put a system in place for photo documenting my build in such a way that requires very little intervention each time I have a build session and allows the flexibility to store photos and put together time lapse videos easily. I am curious how others are doing this.

[Sid Lambert]

You can take your old smart phone and mount it up with power. There are plenty of time lapse apps out there.

[gc1016]

I recently bought a garmin VIRB and use it for this purpose, in addition to using it for flight and mountain bike videos. It has a time lapse setting, and the garmin edit program integrates each video seemlessly together with other videos.

I am still playing with it, but for build sessions all I have to do is take it off the charger, clip it to the mount and turn it on. In time lapse mode a 30 GB memory card holds hundreds of hours. With a long enough USB cable you can plug it in and never worry about charging the battery, which lasts for 3.5 hours. The editing software that comes with it allows you to mesh up each individual session flawlessly.

[NovaBandit]

You can see my timelapse videos here: http://www.edandcolleen.com

I have a full desktop PC on my main workbench (with a 32" HDTV for a monitor ) running Windows 7. A laptop would work just as well. Not sure about other operating systems, as I use Windows Live Movie Maker... which comes pre-loaded on Windows 7.

The webcam is a Microsoft LifeCam HD-5000, but any webcam that the PC recognizes will work.

I also have a 30' USB extension cable from monoprice.com ($9, LOVE MONOPRICE!!!)

The program I use to capture pictures from my webcam is called Booru (http://lumai.se/bc.html). The extent of the configuration is telling the app which webcam to use, how often to take a picture, and where to store the pictures. Mine is set to take a pic every 5 seconds. There are other apps that do the same thing, but I haven't investigated them.

My process is this:

1. Put the webcam somewhere it can get a good view of the work area. Mine is normally clamped to a shelf somewhere.
2. Open Booru (it starts recording as soon as it opens)
3. Build an airplane.
4. When finished building the airplane, quit the Booru app.
5. I move the captured pictures to another folder, but only because I'm going to keep them all. If you're only interested in the video, you can ignore this step... and delete the pics when you're done.
6. Open Windows Live Movie Maker
7. In WLMM, click "Add Pictures or Videos"
8. Browse to your pictures folder, right click > select all, then click "open".
9. In WLMM, hit the edit button.
10. There is now a field to choose how long to display each pic. I use .05 seconds.
11. Hit "Save Video" You now have a WMV Video file.


It looks like a lot all typed up, but it takes me about 20 seconds from start to finish (except the "build an airplane" step)