The University of Arizona

Time-Lapse Videos

Here are some silent time-lapse movies that I've made. Many of these can be viewed at higher resolution by selecting the “full screen” icon or the “Vimeo” link.

Javelinas at the Bird Bath

A Bushnell wildlife camera caught this herd of young and old javelinas vandalizing our bird bath.

Ten Years of the Webcam in One Minute

This is a longitudinal sampling of ⅓ of the images taken by the Arizona Webcam at noon from January 2006 through September 2016. You can watch the palm trees grow and see occasional bursts of roof repair and distant building construction.

Local solar noon varies from about 12:10 to 12:40. Palm tree shadows in the lower left move to show this the yearly cycle. The few deciduous trees also drop leaves annually.

Here's a longer version with no days omitted.

Water Garden Visitors

A camera trap powered by CHDK captured these visitors to a back-yard tub garden.

Water Lily

After growing for nearly two years in a tub, our water lily finally decided to bloom. Each flower typically opens for two or three days in a row and then disappears. Here is one day's action at about 3000× real time.

Landscaping

In October of 2013 my back yard was landscaped by Sonoran Gardens. A Canon A710IS pocket camera, mounted on a wall and driven by CHDK, took a picture every four seconds. This first video shows the highlights at about 120× real time.

I experimented with automated approaches for reducing the full project to a manageable length. In the following videos, each frame reflects five minutes of elapsed time, for an overall speedup of 9000×.

The first approach simply averages all the input images taken over each five minute-span; thus every input image contributes a little something.
The second approach mimics a time-lapse camera with a 5-minute interval. Three images from each interval were inspected and the "most representative" (in some mathematical sense) was selected. This minimized "unlucky" shots where, for example, somebody's head blocked the view.
The third video uses a hybrid approach to better show the real extent of the activity. Each pixel over each interval is weighted ⅓ by minimum value, ⅓ by maximum value, and ⅓ by mean value.

Demolition and Construction

The Franklin Building (its final name) housed the law college and later the journalism school of the University of Arizona. It was demolished in 2006 and replaced by McClelland Park housing the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences. Hand-held photos were aligned using software originally designed for use with microscope slides: the StackReg and TurboReg plug-ins for ImageJ.

Catalina Foothills Storms

From 2000 to 2009 I set up and ran the Arizona Webcam. This full-day sequence is one of my favorites, with a dozen distinct storms passing across the foothills. Many more movies from this camera can be found on the Video Vault page.

Cochise Hall Gutter Maintenance

Workmen clean the gutters of pigeon debris at the University of Arizona's Cochise Hall; note the hazmat suits. The worn-out USB camera had lost its ability to produce reasonable color.