@Kyle and everyone else that thinks negative comments are going to improve things. First, you have to understand the communication stack between the controller and the app. You have the Android OS, SDK and the app. The app can only do what the SDK allows for. The Android OS is responsible for communicating between SDK and controller. So it’s possible that DJI has not fully tested their SDK with more current versions of the Android OS. DJI doesn’t seem to be very forthcoming with their SDK roadmap nor supported OS versions.
Now I have heard how Dronedeploy just works… After reading their forums and trying the app, it seems they have the same types of issues as other 3rd party DJI apps. Dronedeploy’s business model strictly involves drone usage and completely abstracts the processing from a user. For a professional that is pretty scary as anyone with experience doing this knows that image capture is not a perfect science. Errors occur, and having the processing abstracted prevents the professional from making corrections.
In summary, if you want to help, then provideo positive feedback and include as much info including the pix4d log files. Also remember, this is a beta, not a production app.
As a disclaimer, I do not work for pix4d or am a representative for them. I’m a former Microsoft product manager that actually understands and respects the development process and what Jonas and his team is going through.
I want to back up what Keenan has said. There is no place for negative comments in this thread. The purpose of this thread is to provide feedback to the develop team that can be used in a constructive manner to improve the App. This is a beta App and user should not expect the package to be without bugs.
I have been using this App for awhile now with great success. I have found that Capture 2.04, P3 1.4.10, and Samsung S6 as well as Samsung Tab S are a good combination and for the most part stable. I have flown and processed over 30 missions using this set and I am pleased (with the App and the processing engine). I have QC’ed several of my projects with ground check points and two projects with existing point cloud data that I collected with a terrestrial scanner…The results were impressive. I have also checked results against PhotoScan and was equally impressed.
Thank you Jonas and the rest of the development team for continuing to work on this App and to provide us with another FREE option for data acquisition.
I am not an employee of PiX4D and my comments and observations are made freely and without compensation.
I agree with the sentiment to not allow this to become a place to be overly critical. With that said though, I do think that with as much money and time many of us have spent trying to get a really solid and reliable workflow together for our clients, frustrations and disappointments can be expected to some degree.
The good news is that were are all working with some really amazing new technology, and that is also exactly what presents us the greatest amount of headaches.
So far, when using the Inspire I have never been able to get the beta to communicate. It comes up fine to other 3rd party apps, but not the Pix4d Capture App.
Not an employee of Pix4d, too busy being bossed around by my wife… Guys this is all gonna get better…
I used the app successfully in several flights, until a few weeks ago when after last update (Pix4Dmapper Capture App 2.0.7) I start to experience difficulties to establish communication between the app and my Phantom 3, after a few app crashes, it was no longer possible to link the app with the aircraft, and I start to see the following message: “Could not fetch media list from the drone! Try to restart it…”, as you can imagine restarting the drone, the RC or the app was useless. I tried to reinstall the app but again, this doesn’t work. I was using Drone Deploy beta app, until today when I install the firmware upgrade from DJI and Drone Deploy stop working, so right now I’m downgrading my Phantom to firmware 1.04.0010, hoping to fix it in this way.
I hope that the Pix4d team will success with fixing the bugs and problem on the app, wishing that they can incorporates some of the ideas and suggestions made in this forum, because while working did a great job for me.
First I apologize if my comment was viewed as negative. It is just frustration of having purchased a professional licence for software and also equipment that has been on the market for 4 months and not being able to actually use them. I think everyone here will appreciate that this equipment depreciates very fast and having it sit around not being able to use it is frustrating. Obviously I am very fond of Pix4d which is why I am here spending my time trying to get it working. However I find it very interesting that people who have been very silent and have been using this setup successfully for a while suddenly feel compelled to chime in. Which means that you have been watching this thread and other people struggle while offering very little assistance. If you have the time to post comments why not follow your own advice and post something constructive about your setup or procedure instead of just complaining, which is what you are accusing me of. I am not getting paid by anybody either. Especially not if I can’t get any work done. I even went out a spent a few hundred dollars yesterday on a new tablet just to see if I could get that working. I will be happy to post my finding when I have had a change to try it. I would not be spending my time on money on this if I was not interested in helping to get this working. I will try not to leave negative comments.
Do the photo locations get loaded into the drone with the flight plan? Speed and camera angle?
My capture app device disconnected after launching a flight. I decided to let it go as a test. It seemed to fly the grid but did not take any pictures. If the photo locations, speed, camera angle could all be loaded in the drone it would reduce loss of photos during temporary communication breaks. Furthermore, I have need to fly where there is zero Internet access and I would like to be able to preload flight plans under the lack of maps and aerials in the field.
Be sure that we are working on those issues. Talking about frustration, I have been working on the P3/I1 since January, and I can tell you that it is not nice. Let’s make it clear: we do not make Capture unstable for fun ;-).
I am now trying to integrate the new SDK but it breaks backward compatibility, as every single release usually does.
For now, Capture triggers the pictures. It means that if Capture loses the connectivity, the pictures will not be taken. That will change, but first the current code has to work.
We will receive an X5 soon, and we will test it. For now, you can just go in advanced mode and try to find a suitable overlap setting…
SDK 3 will drop support for the Phantom 2, so anyway we will have to split the App. It just takes some time, which is why I am trying to make SDK 2.4.1 work first =/.
Thanks all for your patience and support, and sorry for the inconvenience!
Just because you asked, I am one of those people that have successfully used the app since the last update and have been reading the comment section. I use a NVIDIA tablet and I have had little problems with stability. I’m not a computer guy, so I couldn’t tell you why I’m not having a problem and you are, so that’s why I don’t offer to help. My suggestion would be to buy a NVIDIA tablet, I bought one as my main screen when I purchased my Inspire and I love it. I’ve never had any major problems with the App. I also have a Venue8 which sucks and is no longer supported for the most recent android update, or can use my iPhone 6.
But just last week I mapped out a 60-acre property, with some surrounding area it was 90 acres total. The point of the project was the Orthomosaic. I mapped the entire property at 300 feet in a single flight, then it began snowing. I came back 3 days later and mapped the property again but at 150 feet, took 3 flights. I was happy with both results on the ortho. No issues with the app.
I will post the orthomosaic just below, and here is the 3D model created of just the building on the top right hand corner of property, not the entire 90 acres. Turned out pretty good, but not great. https://sketchfab.com/models/5df03c497bd747138dfad8eacc0dc6c6
Thanks Mitchell. I noticed that the nVidea Shield Tablet seems to be working which is why I bought one this Saturday. I spent yesterday configuring, loading apps, and updating all my firmware. Hope to get out soon. Too bad the daylight hours are very short right now here in Canada. And the snow does not help for match points.
I just pushed 2.0.8 to beta, it should be available for you in a few hours.
Here are the results from my tests:
Download still doesn’t work, even though they say it was fixed in the changelog of DJI SDK 2.4.1…
Grid mission works well with P3 Advanced / P3 Pro
For Inspire 1, sometimes it cannot upload the mission (in the preflight checklist). In that case, I hit “cancel” and I try to start the mission again, and it works.
When I get the message “cannot fetch media list”, then I am not really connected to the drone, actually. I have to unplug the USB cable, kill Capture, replug the USB cable and restart Capture, and then it works.
The Inspire 1 has firmware 1.4.0010, the Phantoms have firmware 1.5.0030.
What about you guys? I really hope it is better this time!
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