DJI Mavic image quality issues

PIX4Dcapture
1

Folks: I’m just getting started with drone-based 3d reconstruction of landscapes, and I’ve run into an issue with my initial foray into using a DJI Mavic Pro with the Pix4DCapture app for Android.  Since the software doesn’t allow (as far as I know) the Mavic’s RAW (DNG) format, and only lets it collect JPGs, the JPG compression appears to be causing a decent amount of distortions over a grassland we are imaging.  So, my question is twofold:

1) Is there or can there be a way to select the DNG “RAW” output (which will contain EXIF that should be usable in Pix4D or other programs).  It is easy to convert a RAW into a JPG if Pix4D doesn’t support it, but at least this gives us the maximum options.

  1. Secondarily, is there a way to tweak the JPG compression settings to allow for a higher quality JPG?
1 Like
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Hi Jonathan,

At the moment it is not possible to capture RAW images with Pix4Dcapture because this image format is not compatible with our software, Pix4D Desktop. We only support .jpeg and .tif. However, we have forwarded this suggestion about saving images in RAW format to our product team for the mobile application.

We are not aware of JPG compression settings to be tweaked, at least not with our products.

Regards,

3

I asked myself the question.
However, Jpgs have been created on the PC from RAW images was a better quality.
An intermediate step is worthwhile.
Already to adjust the colors.
This works fast in batch jobs.

4

In case you haven’t found this out by testing yet, the mavic sharpness setting is actually more like a noise filter, leaving it at 0 will cause a lot of blurring in shadows and foliage, best stay between +1 and +3, +1 being the most pleasing for everyday use, +3 may cause noise to stand out especially in video.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Pix4D inherits settings you set in DJI Go (stored on the mavic) if it doesn’t modify them, that includes sharpness and most other post processing related settings.

That said I really wish RAW shooting was possible, I can do 1.5-2 RAW/sec manually in single shot and I think it’s an usable speed for photogrammetry, I read somewhere that the SDK was limiting the rate of capture to 1 every 5sec or something but I’ve been wondering if that’s just when it’s in interval mode…

RAW will always be better on the mavic, no matter what setting you use jpeg is compressed to hell and a fixed sharpness filter is applied no matter what setting you use causing ringing all over the shop.

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Kevin,

We have very little feedback about the sharpness setting. It seems to only affect some parts of the images that are softer so when the images is blurry it should not be the reason. A user shared this video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEQvOAsY6ks

As for the RAW format, it was added to our list of requested features :).

Thank you for the feedback!

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Has there  been any progress on this topic? I tried shooting with sharpness at +3 but the details in my jpeg´s still look like watercolour paintings. 

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Hello Droni,

Are you using the Android or iOS version of Pix4Dcapture?
In a general way, if an unexpected behavior occurs, we suggest going through our basic checks and troubleshooting steps. It will enable to solve most of the issue encountered.
Also it the lights conditions are changing a lot during the flight, it can lead to the behavior you have encountered. Usually, when flying we suggest making sure that the light conditions are good and also the light is not too low (after dusk).

Best regards,

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Dear Julie,

I also have to urgently support the activation of Mavic and Mavic 2 (I fly both) DNG images.
A simple comparison shows that in certain weather, the colour in JPGS shows a noticeable vignetting compared to the colour richness of the DNG.
We can also adjust the colours of all images, to influence the final model’s colour definition.
Keep in mind we may also want to use the individual photographs for other uses beyond photogrammetry.

Urgent and would make a great software even better!

Thanks!