PyElapse

A Python script for creating time-lapse videos from images.

If you have found this, you probably have the same issue I had: There are plenty of tools to manipulate images, but some of them lack bulk processing capabilities. This script is meant to fill that gap for my use case. I wanted to create a time-lapse video of my construction site and needed to remove night photos, weekends, crop images, and normalize the intervals of the images. It is far from perfect, but it works for me. If you have any suggestions or improvements, feel free to open an issue or a pull request.

Example usage:

pyelapse remove-photos /path/to_image_folder/ --exclude-time 22:00-06:00 --exclude-days sat,sun
pyelapse create-timelapse /path/to_image_folder/ --output path/time-elapse-video.mp4 --fps 30

install

pip install pyelapse

On macOS (using Homebrew):

# On Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg

# On Windows (using Chocolatey):
choco install ffmpeg

brew install python

# us pip to install the required packages:
pip install pyelapse

Remove Photos

You can try out different removal settings by restoring previously removed images before running the removal:

pyelapse remove-photos /path/to_image_folder/ --exclude-time 22:00-06:00 --exclude-days sat,sun --restore-removed

• The --restore-removed flag moves all images from the removed folder back to the main folder before applying the removal logic.
• You can also rename the kept files using the EXIF date/time and a custom suffix with --rename, e.g.:

pyelapse remove-photos /path/to_image_folder/ --exclude-time 22:00-06:00 --exclude-days sat,sun --rename Own_Name

This will produce files like 2024-06-07-14-30-00-Own_Name.jpg.

Batch Crop Images

Crop all images in a folder to a rectangle, specifying the upper left and lower right corners, and preserving EXIF data:

pyelapse batch-crop /path/to_input_folder/ /path/to_output_folder/ --start-x 100 --start-y 50 --end-x 700 --end-y 950

• The crop window is defined by the upper left (--start-x, --start-y) and lower right (--end-x, --end-y) corners.
• EXIF information is preserved in the output images.
• You can optionally rotate the image before cropping using --rotate, e.g.:

python pyelapse.py batch-crop /input /output --start-x 100 --start-y 50 --end-x 700 --end-y 950 --rotate 4.14

• You can also rename the output files using the EXIF date/time and a custom suffix with --rename, e.g.:

python pyelapse.py batch-crop /input /output --start-x 100 --start-y 50 --end-x 700 --end-y 950 --rename Own_Name

This will produce files like 2024-06-07-14-30-00-Own_Name.jpg.

Normalize Image Intervals

If your images have different time intervals (e.g., some 3 minutes apart, some 1 minute apart), you can normalize them so the video plays at a constant speed:

python pyelapse.py normalize-intervals /path/to_input_folder/ /path/to_output_folder/ --target-minutes 1

• This will duplicate or skip frames as needed so all intervals match the target (e.g., 1 minute).
• Use the output folder as input for your time-lapse creation.

Create Timelapse Video

You can compress the output .mov file using ffmpeg and H.264 by specifying the --crf option (lower values mean higher quality, typical range 18-28):

python pyelapse.py create-timelapse /path/to_image_folder/ --output output.mov --fps 24 --crf 23

This will create output.mov and then compress it to output_compressed.mov using ffmpeg.

Timestamps on frames

To overlay the EXIF date/time in the lower-right corner of each frame while creating the timelapse, add --timestamp:

python pyelapse.py create-timelapse /path/to_image_folder/ --output output.mp4 --fps 24 --timestamp

• If EXIF DateTimeOriginal is present, that timestamp is used.
• If EXIF is missing, the script falls back to the filename (if it contains digits), otherwise to the current date/time at build.