

Calls to make time-lapse commonplace in construction go as far back as 1969 with a study by Purdue University in the US. However, the construction industry never truly adopted it early on due to the cost and logistic constraints of the cameras at the time, making it relatively reserved for major projects. It has existed in one way or another since 1872, but it did not truly become popular until Dr John Ott used it in the 1930s to document the growth of plants.

History of time-lapse in construction Time-lapse is not a new technology in any way. But why is this better than using the tried-and-true stills? Why even use construction cameras for time-lapse? There are many reasons to use construction cameras in time-lapse, not only in promotional materials, but also for practical reasons, some of which, we will touch upon in this article, but first, we will approach the history of time-lapse, how it works and how to set it up. Over the past few years, more and more contractors and developers have been using time-lapse videos taken with construction cameras of their building process in promotional materials.

Construction is a slow and gradual process which means it can be difficult to communicate progress with nothing but still images.
