Instagram has just launched Hyperlapse, a standalone app that makes it easy to create professional-looking time lapse videos.

Time lapse is a technique in capturing video footage that uses a low frame rate. This allows filmmakers to capture motion that takes a long period of time to complete, such as night turning to day or the seasons changing. The new app, the company's second aside from the Instagram service (it launched one-tap photo app Bolt last July), uses image stabilizing algorithms to make timeline videos taken with a smartphone a lot smoother.

"Traditionally, time lapse videos depend on holding your phone or camera still while you film. Hyperlapse from Instagram features built-in stabilization technology that lets you create moving, handheld time lapses that result in a cinematic look, quality and feel-a feat that has previously only been possible with expensive equipment," Instagram said in a blog post.  

Thomas Dimson and Alex Karpenko, who are part of the team behind Hyperlapse, detailed the development of the app in an interview with Wired. Dimson said that the inspiration for Hyperlapse was an art house film called Baraka, which featured tracking shots of scenes in 25 countries on six continents. The duo, who are college friends from Stanford University, aimed to use smartphone image-stabilization technology to shoot footage just like in Baraka. The movie was shot with a custom-built and computerized 65mm camera.  

The image stabilization algorithm that eventually gave way to the creation of Hyperlapse was borne out of Karpenko's Ph.D thesis from Stanford. His research came out in 2010, and he said that the video editing tools at the time, such as Final Cut, was unworkable on smartphones because the devices did not have enough processing power. Karpenko dealt with this limitation by taking advantage of the gyroscopes inside smartphones to make images clearer. Karpenko created an algorithm that can map one frame to the next to make it appear that the camera was steady.

The Hyperlapse app is now available on the App Store right now. There's no solid timeline for an Android release. However, Instagram told Wired that it hopes to develop an Android version soon.