Dear PIX4D friends, it is possible to update the base of the pix4d app for android in your field photographs, they are very old I give you an example I have to make a flight in the south of Chile on a road that is going to be projected and the base This bad does not look good … I leave the restlessness, in advance thank you very much.
Atte.
Julio Ladrón de Guevara
Jesus,
Pix4D Capture is not Terrain aware. I have a request in to make it Terrain Aware. The ebee flight planning software is terrain aware, but with the latest Capture Release, the slow grid pattern of a DJI unit is getting us better results. Now if we could use it the 3D Model to fly up the sides of mountains, that would be great.
Julio,
It’s my understand, and Pix4D please correct me if I’m wrong, but the app uses the Bing Imagery API which while easier to configure, doesn’t have the coverage and update frequency that Google Maps API has. In many places, Bing is better because it favors leaf-off imagery compared to Google’s consumer-friendly leaf-on imagery. Having the optionality to switch between the two, and/or and ESRI layer would be optimal.
That’s all for now.
Cheers,
Greg
Esteemed, many thanks once again, another query taking advantage of the same, because when zooming the image to see better details this is lost and appears the “map data not available” grids, greetings and thank you very much.
atte.
Julio Ladrón de Guevara
I agree with Greg Hering. A really important update would be to be able to use different kinds of polygons. Not only for battery optimization, but for those cases were physichal obsatcles (eg. cliffs) affect the minimum height required to flight safe. It happens to me a lot when doing research on coastal water bodies.
In other topic. I recently moved to a Motorola Z Play with Android 6.0.1. I found some kind of bug, (probably plataform related since this never ocurred to me before). Basically, when I upload the mission to the Phantom 4, the dron perfoms the auto take off, but stays hovering at 0.6 m aprox (mission won’t start by itself). Workaround consist on restarting the app and uploading the mission while the dron was on the air. I’ll try with this new version! thanks in advance!!
Overall I’m quite happy with all the advantages that Pix4D provide and the updates provided. I’ve tried with all kind of programs and Pix4D capture takes the best shots. Recently I tried with Litchi taking photos at 2 sec interval, but you have to be aware of the distance betwen transects to get a good overlap, plus, you have to manually configure the shutter speed to avoid blurry images. Thanks for all Pix4D capture team!
Best regards,
Alejandro
I have had a DJI Mavic Pro for a few weeks and flown several missions with Litchi and with Pix4dCapture.
I have not done a control test and flown the same job with both programs due to time constraints.
In every case the photos captured with Pix4dCapture are extremely more blurry than ones captured with Litchi. I am not sure what “optimal” camera settings are automatically picked, but it does not seem to be optimal to me.
Here is an example photo from Pix4dCapture (sized down for sake of posting on here, but the blurriness is nearly identical to the full resolution photo:
And then here is one from Litchi:
Are there any ideas on different things for me to try?
The Pix4dCapture app appears to have very little to offer for changing settings on the camera actual capture settings. According to some other places on the internet some of the blurry may be coming from the JPG compression used in the Mavic Pro, so there is opportunity to get better pictures from using the raw capture (if Pix4d is able to make use of that format). Both the above photos were using JPG.
JT
I have the same problem with my mavic and I wonder if it has anything to do with focussing? On the mavic you need to tap to focus every time you take off.
Hi.
I have seen that Pix4dCapture is already compatible with Phantom4 PRO.
But, when programming a mission the flight time is higher than the normal Phantom 4 (same extension).
This is very rare as the flight speed of the Phantom4 PRO is 14 m/s and that of the normal Phantom 4 of 10 m/s.
It would be logical that the missions with the Phantom 4 PRO lasted less time and not the reverse as it is now.
Apologies for my poor English.
Best regards.
We currently don’t take into account the maximum speed of the drone for our flight planning calculations, only camera parameters and user’s selected settings (overlap, altitude and mission dimensions).
If compared with Phantom 4, Phantom 4 Pro camera’s focal lenght is bigger and the field of view is narrower. Because of this new camera’s characteristics, in order to adapt and increase the reliability of our overlap calculation we had to:
Increase the number of flight lines for same selected overlap and flight altitude
Increase the number of images taken per each line
This will result in higher flight times for missions flown with P4P, if compared with same altitude, overlap and dimensions missions flown with P4.
As a suggestion, note that i f you need a specific GSD (e.g. 3 cm/pixel, see example below), the increased P4P sensor size/image resolution will allow you to obtain it flying your mission at an higher altitude. This might even result in a reduced flight time, when compared with same mission with the same GSD flown with P4.
e.g.
P4
GSD: 3 cm/pixel (70 m altitude)
Flight time: 6 min 30 sec
P4P
GSD: 3 cm/pixel (110 m altitude)
Flight time: 6 min 00 sec
Hope this helps,
Regards
Hi Mattia,
Could you explain the Fast/Slow slider in the mission planning screen in quantitative terms? After the last major release, I noticed the P3P flew slower but longer and took more accurate photos. Is there an optimal position on the fast/slow slider to increase area surveyed per battery? The DJI app limits propulsion to conserve battery when the battery is almost doscharged. Also, is there an optimal setting to use in gusty wind conditions?
Thanks, Greg
https://community.pix4d.com/t/5250/comments/115000189726
Hi
I´m having the same trouble, with DJIGo4 app pictures look good, but all blurry and useless with Pix4DCapture app.
Any solution??
Hi
I have used quite often Pix4DCapture using a P4P last pass weeks. Let’s say that results were great for surveying performed at very slow speed. In fast mode there is a lot of blur coming from camera triggering during turning at waypoint.
There are two issues related to ‘best camera parameters’:
Low light: P4P camera is not great when working at low day light. It cloud be mitigated using ISO controller.
Rolling shutter: even if P4P camera has a mechanical shutter I’ve got a lot of rolling shutter effect. P4P lets you choose between mechanical and electronic shutter. That said, isn’t Pix4Dcapture using the mechanical shutter? or electronic shutter?
Conclusion: those issues cloud be solved giving to the user more camera control in order to better adapt those parameters.
Thanks!
Dan
On my iOS device seem much more advanced than the android version? On the iOS is looking a little better, but just at a brief look its still a long way to go
So a few questions and comments with keeping in mind I have never used it because its nowhere near flexible enough compared to using Litchi. I also support Can Patterson suggestions.
I suggest setting the speed where it only shows Slow/Fast would be a lot better if you can actually see the speed it will travel at.
It seem that the drones heading is fixed to pointing north in Polygon mode? I cant see how to rotate it and if not why not?
Why is there no where to see the actually compass heading in the gird mode when adjusting it orientation?
I recall last time I tired to use this app the quality of the maps was just awful. It might be ok if you are in a city or in Europe or USA, but a lot of the out of town locations we do for mining and quarry surveys here in Asia, the maps are totally unusable and with no detail below around 1000m. Hence agree with the suggestion to import KML/KMZ or to be able to choose other map sources. BIG NOTE: This issue alone will be the one critical reason we will not use Pix4Dcapture until we can use better map options so that we can actually see where and what we are needing to survey.
I don’t get the point of having the “Free flight” mode where there are plenty of other apps that do this sooo much better? Why not at least make it so we can design and draw a free style flight plan? Please make it of some use.
Why we prefer Litchi is because we can draw the flight plans from the comfort of our PCs and then upload them on the devices. We can also “design” the flight plans exactly to suit the locations and to maximize the use of the battery and get the max flight times where we include the out bound legs and return legs to also be capturing data. Unlike Pix4D capture using the grid mode, the return flight leg is just wasting battery and eats into your flight time.
@Greg
The Fast speed is optimal to capture good imagery and ensure a good reconstruction of the model. On Android, the picture triggering was based on a signal and is now based on time lapse which is indeed, more accurate. However, to make sure the drone does not miss images, it flies a bit slower than before. We would not recommend to map an area with windy conditions.
@Mikael
Which drone are you flying? Could you open DJI GO, set the focus to Infinite and to Manual. close DJI GO, open Pix4Dcapture, and start the mission as per normal? Let us know if the option helps.
Are you using Pix4Dcapture on iOS? Because the Safe/Fast mode distinction is only on iOS.
Have you tried to change the ISO settings in DJI GO 4 before flying? This could be taken into account when flying with our app.
The type of shutter linear/digital or global/mechanical is taken into account. We apply the option selected in DJI GO 4.
Thank you for the detailed feedback. The Android and iOS interfaces are a bit different, and some features are not shared by both platforms.
The suggestion about numerical value for the speed is good. However, could you perhaps tell us why this information would be useful? Is it because you want to make sure the drone does not fly too fast so without numerical values you do not know how to set this parameter?
The heading of the drone should change while flying (it rotates in the angles), it should look forward with the polygon, grid and double grid missions.
The orientation of the map is fixed meaning North is always at the top, therefore we do not see the need for a compass. Do you mean you would like to set the orientation of the grid with a numerical degree value with respect to North? If so, could you give a bit of context so that we understand why you would need this precision?
We are aware that in some places, tiles are missing depending on the zoom level with the default base map provider (Mapbox and OpenStreetMap). Switching from the satellite to the street background might partially solve the problem of the missing information. So far it does not seem that iOS users are facing these issues because the app does not use the same default provider. Possible solutions to this problem on Android are to change the base map provider or import a .kml/.kmz file.
The free flight mission is not automated at all unlike the other types of mission. The user should pilot the drone, but the picture triggering is automatic according to some distance intervals. We considering the options for vertical grids or grid adjusted to slope. The polygon mission is already on iOS and will come soon on Android. Do you think about other specific applications?
We reported the suggestion about planning the mission on a computer. What do you especially like when designing the mission on a computer vs. tablet?
Taking advantage of the return path of the drone to capture images in order to save battery is good and would make sense for polygon flights which are more flexible than grids. We have forwarded this feedback to our Product team for future development.