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Buildcam TL in front of a sandstone town hall under scaffold for restoration

Industries · Heritage

Time lapse cameras for heritage restoration, from first scaffold to final reveal.

Work on a historic building touches fabric that has stood for generations. Our Buildcam cameras record the building before work begins, through every intervention, to the finished result.

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Before, during, after
One continuous record
Shareable link
Community access
Time Portal
See behind the scaffold
Simple install
Minimal hardware on site
Trusted by over 380 brands including:

A record that lasts as long as the building.

The restoration of a historic building is rarely routine. Every intervention is considered, documented and, in most cases, irreversible. A continuous visual record from before works to completion gives the project team a reference they can return to at any point, and gives heritage advisers a clear account of what was done.

Landmark projects also attract attention. Councils, heritage bodies, funding partners and the community all have a legitimate interest in how the work is going. Our Buildcam cameras capture the site on a fixed schedule and keep the record in Sentinel OS, the intelligent software platform behind every Buildcam camera, so one record serves every audience.

Featured case study

LandmarkDubai, UAE

Exterior refurbishment of the iconic QE2: from cruise liner to floating hotel

The retired 293-metre, 70,000-tonne Queen Elizabeth 2 was transformed from ocean liner to Dubai's most iconic floating hotel. Four PhotoSentinel units documented every stage of the exterior refurbishment: over 2.7 million man-hours of work compressed into a single timelapse.

293 m

Ship length

70,000 t

Ship weight

2.7 million

Man-hours

4

Camera units

Read the case study

More case studies

Anandaban Hospital rebuild

How it works

How a time lapse camera works on a heritage restoration

  1. Mount it with care for the fabric

    The camera goes on a pole, the scaffold or a neighboring structure, positioned with your heritage adviser. It carries its own solar panel and 4G, so there's no cabling into the building for power or data.

  2. Start before the first intervention

    Install before works begin, and the first frames record the building as it stood. From there, the camera photographs the site on a set schedule through every stage of the restoration.

  3. One record for every audience

    Every frame lands in Sentinel OS with a date and time. Conservators compare stages with Time Portal, heritage bodies and funders follow a shared link, and the finished time lapse tells the story at the reopening.

On your project

Conservation, accountability and community

Buildcam TL beside a retained heritage brick facade braced with steel during redevelopment

Historic building restoration records

A pre-works, during-works and post-works archive: time-stamped, exportable and kept for the life of your subscription.

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Sentinel OS comparing two dates of a university campus: the finished courtyard on one side, earthworks on the other

Evidence for heritage advisers

A dated record of each intervention, ready to share with the bodies that oversee the work.

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The Sentinel OS mobile app on two phones: a calendar for picking a date to compare, and a slider comparing city towers at night

Public accountability

A clear record for funders, heritage bodies and the community.

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The QE2 in dry dock in Dubai during its exterior refurbishment

A film worth sharing

The finished time lapse tells the story of the building's next chapter.

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Buildcam TL above a city basement excavation between older buildings

Works beside heritage buildings

New construction and excavation next to historic fabric, recorded day by day. If protection or damage is ever questioned, there's a dated record to check against.

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A three-story building under construction at sunset, seen from above

Adaptive reuse and fit-out

Record how a historic building is adapted for its next use, from strip-out through to the new fit-out.

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Track your progress

See the site change, day by day, with Time Portal.

Compare any two dates across the frame, or drag a window across the image to reveal an earlier state beneath the present. Drag across the facade to see the stone behind the scaffold.

Explore Time Portal in Sentinel OS

Portal mode. Drag inside the window to move it, drag a corner to resize, or draw a new window anywhere on the frame.

The site as it stands nowThe same view at an earlier stageNow
Then
Long-exposure star trails over a construction site at nightLaunching November 2026

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Sentinel OS

Sentinel OS, the intelligent software platform behind every Buildcam camera, turns your footage into searchable evidence, compliance, intel, and story.

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Buildcam TL time lapse camera

Recommended hardware

Buildcam TL

A high-resolution time lapse camera with a simple install and minimal hardware, built for long restoration programs.

Industry: Heritage

Questions about cameras on heritage projects.

The ones that come up most on restorations and landmark builds. The full FAQ lives in Resources.

Restoration work on a listed building or monument involves interventions that can't be undone. Our Buildcam cameras capture a continuous, time-stamped record before, during and after the works, so every stage is documented as it happened. That archive becomes a reference for conservators, advisory bodies and anyone reviewing the approach taken.
Landmark restorations are watched by the community, funding bodies and heritage organizations long before the scaffold comes down. A shared project link gives all of them one dated view of progress without a dedicated communications effort. Interest in the project is met rather than left to speculation.
Yes. Sentinel OS uses role-based access, so you can give donors, board members and the public the view that suits each audience. The same footage that reassures a funding body becomes a finished time lapse for a fundraising event or a public update.
Heritage works often stretch across years, and the record needs to stay complete for all of it. Our Buildcam cameras run on solar power and connect over 4G, so they keep capturing without mains power or fixed internet. The footage is held in Sentinel OS for the life of your subscription, so the archive stays intact from the first scaffold to the reopening.
The story of a restoration is easiest to tell when it has been captured from the start. Sentinel OS turns the full program into a finished time lapse for openings, exhibitions and public campaigns. Every frame is also exportable, so your team can draw individual moments from the archive.
A time-stamped visual archive gives advisory bodies and funders an objective account of what was done and when. Every frame is captured on a set schedule and kept at full resolution, so it can stand as a reference during reviews or reporting. It's a dated record made as the work happened, not a reconstruction after the fact.
Yes. Restorations tend to involve councils, cultural institutions, conservation teams and community groups, each with a legitimate interest in progress. Sentinel OS gives each of them access to the same project, so everyone works from one source of truth and nobody has to update each party separately.
Yes, if the camera goes in before works begin. The first frames become the baseline. Time Portal lets you drag a window across any later frame to reveal the building as it stood, which helps when a detail has been covered by scaffold, mesh or new work.
No. Our Buildcam cameras carry their own solar panel and battery and connect over 4G, so nothing needs to be cabled into the historic fabric. That keeps the install simple and the building untouched by services.

Different question?

The full FAQ covers hardware, platform, security, and billing. Or skip the search: talk to a real person on the callback.

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Start the record before the first stone is touched.

Tell us about the building and the program, and we'll plan the camera position with you.

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