Timelapse Mode

How timelapse works

Timelapse mode creates a session — a named sequence of frames captured at a regular interval. Each frame is stored with the full analysis results (area, chlorophyll, turgor, hue). At the end of the session you can export a video with the metrics overlaid as a live graph at the bottom.

Setting up a session

1. Go to your plant's detail page and tap Start timelapse

2. Set an interval (15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day)

3. Give the session a name — e.g. "Spring growth, March 2026"

4. Tap Start — the session is active

If you are running Sproutcast on a Raspberry Pi with a fixed camera, the edge pipeline captures frames automatically at the set interval. On the PWA you will get a reminder notification to open the app and take a capture.

Compact mode

For long sessions (weeks to months), use compact mode: only keyframes (captures with significant metric change) are stored at full resolution. Thumbnails are kept for all frames. This is ~28× smaller than full mode and still gives you a meaningful time series.

Exporting

From the timelapse session view, tap Export video. Sproutcast assembles the frames into an MP4 with:

• Timestamp in the corner
• Scrolling sparkline graph of plant area and chlorophyll index
• Optional plant name overlay

The export runs in the browser using the WebCodecs API (Chrome/Edge 94+) or falls back to a frame-by-frame download on other browsers.

Example

The samples/timelapse/sprout.mp4 included in the repository shows a seedling (*Dahlia pinnata*, labelled "Sprout") growing over 40 days. The chlorophyll index climbs from 0.48 to 0.71 over the first three weeks as the seedling establishes, then plateaus as it enters the vegetative growth phase.