My office on the 4th floor of the Broad Institute looks down on the construction site for MIT's new cancer research building. Soon after they tore down the beautiful landscaping that used to be outside the Stata Center, I set up a webcam on my windowsill and started idly capturing shots of the construction while I worked.
This week I finally automated the process with a Python script using VideoCapture and pyMedia. Once a day it compiles all the shots, now taken at 30 minute intervals from 7am-5pm, into a 12fps time-lapse video:
Large MPEG (1280x960, 16.6MB and growing)
Small MPEG (640x480)
A live shot is also taken every 5 minutes: [Update 3/7/09: I stopped recording when they covered the whole construction site with a big sheet.]
(click for larger image)
I used a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, which has a glass lens and nice resolution. It deals surprisingly well with the bright sky and dark, shadowed construction site.
Construction is expected to finish in December 2010, so I'll up the frame-rate when the file starts getting huge.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Python-powered webcam for MIT construction site--with time-lapse video
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10 comments:
Fascinating, I bet the builder would be interested in getting a copy for their own purposes/interest.
The sheet piling then the excavating is particularly interesting.
Joe
Interesting! I just recently did some time lapse videos in python , it really is incredibly easy with VideoCapture.
That's really cool, I love things like this. Would be great if you could post an updated version in a while!
Thanks, everyone!
@carl: The video actually updates automatically once a day between 5pm and 6pm (EST), so you can check back if you're curious.
Well I was going to comment about how cool it was to watch the seasonal cycle of the trees... But then they killed the trees. Still cool though.
The trees wernt killed. THey were wrapped and taken to other locations. And some will be brought back and re planted.
Yes, the trees were...taken
out to the county-line to be...stored
so that they can be...replanted
and live with other trees happily.
Will the webcam come back once the sheet comes off? I love keeping up with the construction process!
Oh, sure! Yeah, I'll keep an eye out, thanks for the suggestion.
I'm leaving Broad in late May, though--would anyone else like to host ConstructionCam?
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