Little Planet Time-Lapse Shows 24 Hours of Planes Bustling Around Dubai Airport

Dubai 360, a website that will soon allow you to explore the city of Dubai using 4K interactive 360º views, has released the first teaser of what’s to come. The teaser was captured at the Dubai International Airport and shows what over 1,000 planes entering and leaving terminal 3 over the course of 24 hours looks like… little planet style.

To create this time-lapse, the team behind it used four perfectly synchronized Canon 1Dx cameras, each with their own Canon EF 8–15mm f/4 L Fisheye lens to capture over 88,000 photographs. The images were then stitched together using Kolor Autopan Video Pro into 22,000 separate panoramas, resulting in some super-high resolution video that Dubai 360 has put to use in a great way.

As a clever nod to the precise 24 hours the above time-lapse was captured on, Dubai 360 notes that the terminal acts as a clock hand of sorts, letting you know what time of day the photograph was taken.

If you want other views, the project has you more than covered. Not only is there a semi-static version of the above time-lapse, but if you head on over to the Dubai 360 website, they also have an interactive player. The player allows you to choose the viewing style – rectilinear, panini, little planet, fisheye and source – as well as various resolutions, ranging in resolution from 720p to 4K.

Whether you’re watching the above version or heading over to the interactive version, be prepared to be unproductive for a good 10–15 minutes. This is as mesmerizing as it is beautiful and it’s easy to get lost in it.