Timetracks4D vs Time Flow Sketch

Timetracks4D is a camera that cuts time out as if it were space. Think of video as a cube stacked in three directions: width, height and time. Ordinary playback cuts that cube straight across time and shows you the slices one after another. Timetracks4D tilts the cut. Once it is tilted, every place on the screen shows a different moment: whatever held still comes out as it was, and only what moved is twisted. ■ Two ways to shoot [Movie] Records while the cut turns. The tilt changes from frame to frame, so the picture keeps moving. Angle, Speed and Window Time change how it twists. [Still] Builds one picture by stacking narrow bands, one at a time. Each band was taken at a different moment, so the finished picture reads as the flow of time from top to bottom. This is the slit scan, the way the first Timetracks worked. It saves a long picture: eight screenfuls joined end to end, each at the camera's own resolution. Both are made from the same camera feed, but they treat time differently, so each one has its own settings. ■ Main settings - Camera (Back / Front), Zoom (Lens), Resolution, Frame Rate - Transform (Shear / Rotate) and the edge time runs along (Long Edge / Short Edge) - Auto Rotate speed, Angle, Window Time - How the band moves (One-way / Palindrome / Wave / Fixed / Drift / Random) - Interval between bands, from single frames to hours - Scan Width - Full Screen, Show Buttons, Touch Gestures, Prevent Auto-Lock - Add Location There is a button that randomizes the settings. If you are not sure what to touch first, press that. ■ Getting a good result Hold the device still. If the device moves, the whole picture moves with it and you cannot tell that apart from the subject moving. A tripod or a table is the sure way. Point it at something that moves. A still subject seen from a still device gives the same picture at every moment, so nothing happens. People walking, a hand, water, traffic, anything swaying in the wind - these work well. Once you have the feel of it, try moving the device instead. That is where the more complicated shapes come from. ■ Pricing Everything except recording is free. Play with the camera and the settings as much as you like; the picture you would get is on the screen already. Try it first. Full Access (a one-time in-app purchase) removes the ad and lets you save movies and stills. If you have already bought Timetracks, you do not need to buy anything. Full Access turns on by itself when you update.

A sketching app for reshaping the way time flows inside a video. You draw the shape of that flow as a black-and-white gradient over the clip you loaded. The brightness you paint becomes a moment in the clip, or a playback speed, so different parts of the image start running on their own time. Only where your finger traced runs ahead. Another part plays backwards. One area stays frozen while everything around it keeps moving. You can even draw time that twists — forward and backward unfolding at once. Take the single, even flow of time in a video, pull it apart, and put it back together. Reflections shifting on water, drifting clouds, the movement of familiar things and creatures: there may be something new waiting in the everyday scenery you thought you knew. ■ Main features [Making a map] • Draw — trace with a finger to draw the flow of time. Five brush tones, a bleed brush, and a smudge tool • Gradients and presets — start from a regular pattern • From motion — build the shape of time automatically from the movement in the clip • Cut & slide — split the map along a line and slide the pieces to make time slip [How the map is applied] • Apply mode — Vertical / Horizontal slit works band by band, Surface works pixel by pixel • Time map — brightness sets which moment of the clip is shown; black is the start, white is the end • Rate map — brightness sets the playback speed, from reverse to fast forward • Space map — brightness sets where on screen the picture is taken from [Checking what you made] • 3D plot — see the shape of time as a solid • Time graph — see time, rate and space as line charts [Sound and export] • Sound — the audio goes through the same time processing as the picture • Export — save the result to your photo library as a video All video processing happens on your device, and nothing you make is sent anywhere.