[Android, iOS] Is it possible to fly lower than 10m/32ft?

PIX4Dcapture PIX4Dcapture Questions/Troubleshooting
1

It seems the lowest height Pix4Dcapture can fly the drone is about 10m or 32 ft. My application requires the drone to fly much lower so that it can get much better and high resolution images.

Is it possible for Pix4D capture? If not, will it be supported in the future?

Thanks!

2

Hi Jie,

It is currently not possible to fly lower than 10m / 32 ft. I have shared your interest in the possibility to go below this flight height with the developer’s team. 

Note that you can fly a Freeflight mission lower than 10 meters above ground level with Pix4Dcapture, however, it requires some skills and I recommend to use it only if the other features in our app does not give you satisfying results. You can learn more about planning and flying a Free Flight mission at How to prepare and start a free flight mission. 

Best

3

I tried free flight mission, but it is hard to control and not consistent.

DJI GS Pro can fly the drone at 5m, but it only supports at most 99 waypoints which makes it impossible to fly on a big area. If Pix4D can allow drones to fly very low, ideally as low as 2m, it will enable lots of possibility in main applications, because we need high resolution images for better computer vision models.

Thanks!

4

You need a better camera/lens combination to let you fly further away yet have higher resolution.  Use the Pix4D GSD Calculator, https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/202560249-TOOLS-GSD-calculator 

Or you might be able to find a lower elevation location to launch the drone as the Pix4Dcapture height is relative to the home point.

5

@ Jie Yang, Adam provided good advice here.

Also, flying at an altitude as low as 2m can be risky. Indeed, keep in mind that your drone will fly at the same height above its home point, so you must take extra caution when flying an automated mission at a low altitude, especially when the terrain elevation varies. Your drone will not automatically follow the terrain and I recommend that you do not rely on your drone’s collision avoidance system to account for changes in terrain elevation.

Best,