[Android] Beta release 2.0.8

We have an even 20 foot elevation error somewhere in the DJI/Capture system. I am sure of it.

Due to the former Above Ground Level information embedded into the images, I had become accustomed to exporting out a text file of the Name,Lat,Long,Elev information, modifying the camera elevation, and re-importing the file to “correct” the camera elevations prior to Initial processing. I had also always been somewhat mystified by the differences in the “Initial” and “Computed” positions for the cameras not matching my expectations.

Today I had a plan. I had my Trimble 5603 robotic total station up and running in reflector-less mode. I measured a white target on the actual launch point, and at the end of my mission, while still hovering at the exact same altitude as the mission, and now back in P-Mode, I made a half dozen measurements to the craft, at a distance of about 450 feet away.

According to the flight setting, and also the Above Ground Level display in Capture, my craft was 360 feet above the ground. According to my measurements with the robotic total station, my craft was exactly at 340.12 feet above my launch point. I am extremely confident in the measurements of the robotic total station. It is (originally) a $20,000 device for professional surveyors.

After manipulating the elevations of my images to match my robotic total station, I had a perfect results from Pix4d on my first time through (a first!). I obtained 0.27% difference between initial and optimized camera parameters, and 0.07’ 3D RMS result with my 9 Ground Control Points.

Track this one down and I will be oh so happy.

John

John,

The gps in the phantom is a recreational grade gps.

It doesn’t get corrections from a fixed base station and would be considered an L1 code based gps.

20’ vertical accuracy is probably as good as it will get, you might a little better horizontal accuracy, probably 3-5 meters.

Probably 5-10 meters vertical.

You will need something like an EBEE, with rtk if you want the images tagged with correct heights.

Its not the capture app, it is the gps in the phantom

@John

Have you tried the .p4d file which is recorded by APP?

Tried to fly today with the new DJI FW, and no luck. Got it to connect and show clear on all checks except battery. When told to take off and begin mission, it just sat there hovering.

Trying to process Inspire 1 Pro X5 images taken by Pix4D Capture in Pix4D Mapper results in disastrous and completely useless results if anyone is interested. Pix4D support blames it on rolling shutter, but if I fly manually it is no problem. 

Richard,

Richard, I will not disagree one bit regarding the quality of the L1 only. I just expected better.

Does anyone have any real data to quantify how important having correct initial elevations are?

Today’s mission, which I forced correct initial elevations upon sure processed better than any of my previous missions.

Yucheng , My .p4d file is a mess, and I do not use it. It always begins with photo number 00000, and the number a photos never matches the SD card.

 

If you’re shooting and using ground control points, the agl elevations are a non-issue since they’ll be corrected in Pix4D.

@John

Regarding photo number, I think it’s a bug. But I am not sure who to blame.

When I get a new SD card or just format it, I will manually take a photo to reset the ‘sequence’ as walk around.

By the way, you may encounter same issue when there are more than 999 photos within the folder.

@John again

According to Pix4D, ‘.p4d’ file should always be used since embedded GeoTag of phantom is not accurate enough (low refresh rate?). I also find that ‘.p4d’ file contains much more info than GeoTag, such as ‘yaw’, ‘pitch’ and ‘roll’.

If accuracy was my top priority, then adding GCPs or using a drone with RTK would be my choice.

 

Yucheng,

Your comment echoed my sentiment regarding the accuracy of the geo-tags. Which makes me wonder about the above comment…

 

Mark Blacklin Yesterday at 21:27

If you’re shooting and using ground control points, the agl elevations are a non-issue since they’ll be corrected in Pix4D

 

Both points of view can not be correct can they?

I’m not sure what you’re referring to about ‘both points of view’.

 

Let’s also keep in mind that this post is for conversations directly related to the Pix4D Capture app.

Mark,

No offense at all intended.

I was questioning the importance, or lack thereof of the .p4d file generated by Capture, and the accuracy contained, and its relationship to our results.

flew in the day , a measurement with your new version of Android Beta app . Worked perfectly, 62 photo, height 60 m, 80 % overlap .
Phantom 3 pro . Sony tablet 5.1.1 , Stop dji go app.

My customer was very pleased with the volume calculation which I fixed in Pix4d .
Thought I could notice that P3 pro flew a little more unsettled in the new 2.0.8 app than before.

@John

According to my information, GCP has the priority over GeoTag. If GCPs were added to the project, Pix4Dmapper would neglect the GeoTag in some way.

FYI, there is a webinar on the YouTube regarding GCP. I think it’s webinar 2 or 3.

 

hello, the app works for inspire1 pro? because it is imposible to connect with ph3, sorry for my bad english i am from colombia

please explain me if i have to install some sdk in my drone, and how to install 

Hi.

I have the Inspire 1 and have been tested the app for a while now and can confirmed that the s6 edge dosent work with newer version than 2.0.4.

I have then used Sony Z2 with 2.0.8. All the known issuse has happend. otherwise the best thing is that i can view battery status.

On this time of year in Sweden there´s a bit short of light even daytime. and it seams like the camera (x3) trys to compensat that and uses very slow shutter. down to 1/8 but more common 1/25. witch results in motion blur in the photos. It would be nice if it comes settings to set the shutter to a fixt value like 1/100 or 1/1000 

 

Hoping to get some quick feedback from other beta testers (or the developers).  I have some field work coming up (leaving tomorrow).  I have been using an older version of Capture beta (I believe it was 2.04) with my P3P on FS 1.4, and everything worked great.  Well, I had a last-minute issue with that P3P and had to replace it with another one.  The new P3P came with FW 1.3 on it, so I upgraded it to FW 1.4 (not 1.5) just to make it identical to my previous P3P, to ensure compatibility with the old version of Capture I was running.  This worked fine, however, I just did a test flight and the new P3P seems to have the wind drift problem other users have reported (my old P3P did not).  I believe the fix to this problem is to upgrade the P3P to FW 1.5, but I’m nervous about breaking compatibility with Capture.  I really need to be able to use Capture’s FreeFlight mode for some data collection we’re planning in the field.  So… my question:  Can anybody confirm that the latest beta of Capture (2.8) and/or the production version (2.7) will work on a Nexus 7 (2013) with a P3P running on FW 1.5?  It seems like it should, but I really can’t afford to be wrong with the short amount of time I have left before I leave.

 

Thanks!

Jeff

@felipe:

We have connection problems with P3/I1 now, but I would not expect the I1 pro to be different…

@Tommy:

With the Inspire 1, you have to RC. The master can be connected with Capture, while the slave RC can be connected with DJI Go. This way you can control the camera. We want to improve that in Capture, but the top priority now is to solve the connection problems…

@Jeffrey:

The latest production version is 2.0.8. I am sorry I cannot guarantee anything right now =(. It is not clear to me which firmware has to be used with which SDK. Some people started having issues when they moved from 2.0.4 to 2.0.5+, and I am still trying to figure out why. I will release 2.0.9 beta tomorrow according to Keenan’s suggestion, but I really cannot guarantee anything because I don’t understand the connection problems some people have.

This said, in the worst case you can try to use DJI Go in timelapse mode and acquire your images like that. It is not the most convenient indeed, but that should work in the mapper. If you have too many images, you can always remove some.

Conclusion: If you can use it in the current state, don’t change anything just before an important event. If it is not usable right now, try updating everything, you don’t have anything to lose. In the worst case, use DJI Go in timelapse mode to acquire your images.

I am happy to see that you actually use the freeflight mode, by the way :wink:

Hi Jonas,

 

Thanks for the quick reply.  I think I had better upgrade my P3P’s firmware to 1.5.  The drifting I was getting during the test flight today was most disconcerting, especially considering that I’m going to be flying within ~10 m (horizontally) of my targets in the upcoming field work. It’s more important that I have complete control over the drone than having it be able to auto-trigger the camera.   Hopefully either 2.08 or 2.09 will still work, but if not, you made a good point about timelapse mode in the DJI app.  Although, if I remember correctly, the fastest it will acquire is one frame every 5 seconds, which is a bit slower than Pix4D’s FreeFlight mode I think.

 

The purpose of this field work is to make a digital outcrop model of a cliff face on a mountain in the Mojave desert, so that we can map the individual sedimentary layers in the outcrop.  I actually will still be flying a grid pattern, except that the grid will be in the vertical plane, rather than the horizontal plane.  As a feature request for future versions of Capture, it would be great if the user could specify an arbitrary angle of the flight grid relative to horizontal.  That would help keep the drone at a constant height above generally sloping terrain, and it would also help in situations like mine, where the user wants to map a vertically-oriented target.  For now, it works pretty well to just use FreeFlight mode while flying a line back and forth in front of the cliff at different altitudes.

Do you know about what time you’ll be releasing 2.09?  My flight tomorrow leaves around 5 pm in the U.S. East Coast.  If you’ll be releasing 2.09 early in the day, I may just wait and not bother to update to 2.08.

Jeff

P.S.  My Nexus is running Android 5.1.1, which someone mentioned might be the common thread with the connectivity issues.  Is the suggestion from Keenan that you referred to intended to fix that?