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UAV Mission Planning Software
Posted by eiffel_tower on December 31, 2018 at 1:22 pmWe have been using our UAV for the past year doing video capture and some photo capture. I am curious as to what some of you are using for mission planning software, for photogrammetric flights. In the past I have used an old version of Ground Station from DJI, but it looks to be obsolete. Any suggestions as to what may be the best option for our Inspire 2 (I do see that DJI offers the GS Pro), but I am looking to see what other option(s) are out there. We are looking at Pix 4D or Agisoft Photoscan Pro for image processing on the back end. Thanks in advance for any advice!
eiffel_tower replied 5 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 8 Replies- 8 Replies
If you are using a DJI drone, look into the app called “Maps Made Easy”. I believe it’s only available for the iPad/iPhone though. The app allows you to easily setup flights to collect aerial photos, tagged with lat/long coordinates for later processing. You can also set parameters such as flight height, flight overlap and photo overlap. All important parameters to consider when conducting these sorts of flights. The app can be a bit touchy, but it works well in general.
I have been using Pix4D to process the resulting drone aerial photos and been getting fantastic results with the orthometric photos and point clouds. If you do your aerial targets correctly and tie them to the aerial photos in Pix4D properly, you can achieve results that rival GPS accuracy. If you desire, you can use the orthometric photo to verify field work and/or use it to supplement field work. It works great for back of curb, edge of pavement type of work – as long as there aren’t many trees involved and you can see whatever you want to digitize from the photo clearly.
To achieve the best contour results, look into Global Mapper software, it has a powerful suite of point cloud processing tools that can really help you clean out a lot of the ‘noise’ that can exist in the point cloud and help you produce contours for your final product. Pix4D can get a little confused by flat roofs (very common in my part of the world) and other objects and will tend to contour to those objects, which is certainly not ideal for contouring.
Maps made easy is simple and reliable. Pay the extra 30 bucks or whatever for linear mission planning.
One important tip..
Use an ipad mini without cellular, or at least remove the sim prior to flight. Turn off wifi as well. Also be sure to update all software and the drone firmware before going to the field.
OK, more than one tip. Good luck..
I’ve found that having an available WiFi connection for the iPad, while flying using the app, seems to help the app figure it’s location in the world and distance away from the drone. This seems to make the app happier and and a bit less ‘glitchy’.
- Posted by: Andrew Clark
I’ve found that having an available WiFi connection for the iPad, while flying using the app, seems to help the app figure it’s location in the world and distance away from the drone. This seems to make the app happier and and a bit less ‘glitchy’.
You can refine your location through wifi, but you can also see a ‘lock-up’ when a nearby signal is inconsistent. I can tell you from experience losing connection and forcing a restart mid-flight is no fun.
I can understand your meaning. Having gone through losing connections issues quite a bit myself and restarting flights mid-way in between on many drone flights.
Have you opened your drone (crack the case) to make sure that all of the communication wires are attached properly? After about 25 flights, those connections may have loosened or become disconnected, that is more likely your cause of loosing connection with the drone. The communication system extends down into each of the four landing struts, each time that you land the drone, the vibration can cause the wires and the appropriate connection that go through each strut, to separate from the communication board inside the main body of the drone. Once those communication wires start to loose connection, it can cause ALL kinds of problems, including random fly-aways, problems with landings, not taking photos while in mid-flight, etc. Keep in mind, it only takes 1 minor disconnection to start having these problems. With the Phantom 4, this is a very common thing to have happen (DJI is very aware of this issue) and the repair isn’t difficult. The fix is reattaching those particular wires with some silicone glue, there are many forums that address how to make that particular fix. Supposedly, DJI addressed this issue and some others when they put out the pro 2.0 model.
It’s also at about 25 flights that you should clean out the motors (if not replace entirely, they are pretty cheap $15-$20) and internal boards with some compressed air, the drone will accumulate quite a bit of dust and debris inside the drone itself and the motors. Then you will have to re-calibrate the photo sensors with a program that is free from DJI – DJI Assistant 2 (you have to download it from the DJI website). You plug the drone into the computer via USB and you follow the instructions of the program. It takes a little time and patience, but the re-calibrate process is fairly simple. Our drone seemed to be much ‘happier’ after performing that service, even the motors sounded much ‘happier’ during flight. Again, there are numerous forums that discuss the communication board issue and routine maintenance of the DJI drone series.
Just my $0.02.
Thank you for the tip Andrew. The issues with comms aren’t when the Ipad is up and working. We had problems with the ipad locking up, then of course you had no connection. We started running it with wifi off and the problem went away.
Interesting. It would seem that no two DJI drones are alike. In the case of the Phantom 4, it’s the most manufactured airframe in existence and yet it would seem many are similar but different.
Gentlemen, thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately we don’t use any apple products here. So we are at the mercy of using android OS for any of our software. Although the “maps made easy” app looks quite good. Have any of you used Litchi for mission planning? Thanks.
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