Does 2.0.5-beta work for you, Mitchell?
It’s here raining today : (
I’m just sitting here watching your YouTube tutorials. I don’t believe it’s in the PlayStore for me either, I checked about 30 minutes ago.
I forget what the safety checklist said - I want to say all but one thing cleared? I didn’t realize I had to takeoff manually. Takeoff in P, switch to F & then press the button in Pix4D, is that correct?
It is raining here today, otherwise I would try it again. Hopefully tomorrow or Friday I’ll get a chance.
@Jonas
I’m currently using 2.0.4 with no problems if I upgrade will I be able to go back to previous versions if I run into problems? Do you have a “changes” list developed for 2.0.5?
Thanks!
Yes, you have to takeoff. Maybe the text is not so clear, we should probably work on that… We try to be transparent about the problems preventing the drone from taking off, but it is not always easy to communicate ;-).
You can takeoff in “F”, actually ;-).
@Mark, Seems like you got it. You also need to tell the App to ignore the 0% Battery reading. Sometimes the app will tell you the mission is too large, you can ignore that as well.
Additionally, just so everyone knows, if you have a dual controller setup on your Inspire you can leave the second controller in the DJI Go App to change the exposure value, monitor the speed and battery %, view the photos etc.
@Cort: For now, you can access the old beta versions here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18350968/index.html#
@Jonas, Great thanks!
Taking off in F mode does not work for me with a Phantom 3 Pro. The motors either start erratically or start and stop immediately after activation. If I take off in P mode, hover and then switch to F mode, then hold takeoff for 3 seconds everything works wonderfully
@Jonas
2.0.5 is available in the play store for my NVIDIA Tablet. Just installed it. I’ll play with it when the rain stops.
Any rough timetable for Capture App on iOS? A week? A month? Xmas? 2016?
@Cort: Okay, good to know. Weird, though…
@Mitchell: It is always difficult and I don’t want to talk too fast (especially because we rely on an SDK we are not developing ourselves), but I think we will have a first version before December.
I know I am going against Jonas’ suggestion of taking off in “F”, but don’t do it. I don’t think the problem is specific to the capture app, because I had similar issues with the DJI Go app. When trying to take off in “F”, when you try to start the rotors, they immediately shutdown 70% of the time. Then a few times, the craft took off immediately and started to fly in a random direction. I will admit I have only experienced this with the Phantom 3 Pro.
In short, I have consistently been able to take off in P mode, hover then flip the switch to F.
Here are the steps I have gone through with success each time.
- Unplug the USB cable from the controller
- Go to the Application Manager of the Android device
- Find the DJI Go App and click the force stop button
- Find the Capture App, if the force stop button is enabled, click it.
- Start Capture App
- Plug in the USB cable into the controller
- You may be prompted to start the DJI Go App, Cancel it. ( If the DJI Go App starts you will need to re-do steps 1-6 )
- Define Your mission as you see fit
- Start the mission
- Make sure you are in P mode
- Start the rotors
- Hover 10 ft (3 m) above the ground
- Flip the switch to “F”
- Click through the screens until you get to the checklist.
- Ignore the battery check. (If you can’t Ignore, make sure in the settings of the Capture App, that you are in Advanced mode)
- At your own risk Ignore the mission size if necessary
- Click and hold take off for 3 seconds.
This is what works for me every time on both the Inspire 1 and Phantom 3 Pro
Good info Keenan, thanks!
I really don’t understand the purpose of steps 1 - 6?
Why do you need to unplug the USB cable? What’s with the force stop button? I don’t even know what that is.
I plan out my entire mission in the Capture App, all the details, then open DJI Go App, fly my drone to 150 ft. Close the DJI Go App, then start the mission with the Capture App.
And as I said, I leave the DJI Go App running on the 2nd controller. You can adjust camera settings and monitor the battery that way.
The purpose of the steps 1 - 6 are to insure the Capture App has grabbed the serial connection via the USB cable correctly.
Here is a little background to provide some context. Android devices only allow one app to utilize the serial connection in debug mode. Debug mode allows a serial connection to be initiated from an Android App to another device in this case the controller. If the DJI Go App grabs that connection, it will prevent the Capture App from using it. In the past, the DJI Go App, has not released the USB connection properly so even if you close the DJI Go App, it still has the USB connection. If DJI fixed this, then you are right you don’t need to, yet I have not tried it yet.
So to answer your questions:
When you plug in the USB cable, you are prompted to start the DJI Go App, right? Well sometimes that prompt doesn’t happen right away, sometimes it does. What I have done by accident is while trying to click another button such as setting up the mission, that prompt has appeared and all of a sudden the DJI Go App is trying to start. Its an annoyance. By plugging in the USB cable, you are deliberating taking the step to have to cancel the DJI Go App from starting. If you never make mistakes, then no, you probably don’t need to do it. But I am human, and I am sharing my experiences.
The Force Stop button is a button that is provided for each app defined in the Application manager of your Android Settings. This forces all resources of the app to release. It is similar to using Task Manager in Windows to kill an app that is no longer responding. Again, you are doing this to make sure no app has taken control of that USB serial connection.
In summary, I am just sharing what works for me, every time. Granted this is in Beta and I am sure the app and SDK that app uses will improve over time with both an Inspire 1 and Phantom 3 Professional. I typically fly missions daily to try and help Jonas and the rest of the Capture App team to find issues. I have been in there shoes before so I know what it is like. I have worked in technology for over 20 years. 8 years at Microsoft, while I am no Android expert, I have a pretty good understanding at a high level on the interaction between the app, the Android OS and the controller.
Now with that said, I will try it your way on both the P3P and I1 then report back my findings. One thing though, do you even need to start the DJI Go app on the 1st controller? I may try it without, I would be curious on your experience as well.
I’ve never had any such problems with the controller not connecting to the apps as you described with the android system limiting the connection. I use a NVIDIA Shield tablet on my #1 controller. And I’m sure you sharing will help others, just seemed odd in my experiences. Sounds like you fly a lot more than I do, so you probably do have a better understanding. I’ve never encountered this “force stop” button on my tablet. Weird. I personally use an iPhone and only ever use android for my inspire, so maybe that is limiting my knowledge with android. But like I said, I always start the capture app, plan my mission, start the DJI Go App to get the drone going, then just close the Go app, head back to capture and get started.
You probably don’t need to start the DJI Go App at all, but I always calibrate with the DJI dance and like to check other status such as battery voltage, make sure the RTH feature is properly enabled for position and an acceptable height, etc. I don’t usually open the DJI Go App in between batteries, just the maiden flight mission. But that is also because I can see all the status and battery readings on the 2nd controller.
Finding the Application Manager, can be tricky on Android devices because the UI can be a bit different on each device. You can find it, by going to your “Settings” icon under your Apps, find the “Device” tab, click “Applications” then “Application Manager”. Here you can see a list of all apps, or apps you just downloaded. You can uninstall apps, delete cached data to make room on your device or force the app to stop. Its handy. The exact location of the Application Manager may be different on a Shield
Definitely just taught me something there!
And now I see the force stop button. I figured hitting the little square and swiping the app away was closing the app completely, seems to work fine to allow the capture app to do its thing. Interesting. Maybe now I can upload my projects to the cloud, I wasn’t able to do it before and maybe the Go App running in the background was my problem. But you should still at least give my method a try and see what kind of results you get.
Thanks Keenan.
@Mitchell
So I gave it a whirl and it did work, but I flipped the controller to P then the app kind of hung so steps 1 through 6 came in handy.
If you did not know, the selection of the drone type has moved to the settings screen. I accidentally flew my inspire 1 with the Phantom 3 Pro selected. Thankfully nothing bad happened.
Some bit of happiness is the battery indicator worked. It actually reported the battery level of the Inspire 1. Also the drone flew to the start point at about 25 ft per second. That’s better than the 11ft per second in the past.
@Jonas
Well I tried the app and it worked. It still takes pictures if I flip to P mode though and the app also hung up. What scared me is my Inspire 1 flew with the Phantom 3 settings and it worked fine. Also I’m not sure if you did but you should announce the drone type setting as moved. Others may miss it like I did.
A few things for your team to look at :
The app did miss taking a few pics, it seemed that the process hung for a split second then the drone image on the app jumped and took a picture. It seemed like the CPU maxed out, not sure if that’s the case or if this is some other threading or sdk issue.
If I switch to another app then back the app seems erratic.
Lastly, when you plug in the USB cable you are asked if you want to start the DJI Go App. Is it possible, to allow the Capture App to be another selection?
@Jonas
This is just some feedback, I thought you guys had removed the overlap, camera angle, etc… capabilities. Then I realized its on the mission screen. One bit of feedback I have for your team, is to make that pop up bigger so its easier to change values… Its a little too tiny right now. So I appreciate the overlap capability. However, I think in advanced mode it would be great to specify the horizontal and vertical field of view. The reason being is for Agriculture purposes, some folks will be flying modified cameras that may change the field of view for the camera. Just a thought.
Also if possible separate the overlap from the side to side and front to back as separate values. This may be a crazy idea but having a UI that shows how the overlap would appear as a user stretches the “overlap” box horizontally and vertically, similar to how we can resize the mission.
@Jonas
Can you provide the value of overlap in terms of % for the previous settings in the App. ie low=? medium=? high=?
Thanks