All,
Same here as @James Maeding - Multiple double Grid missions, P4P v2.0 on an iPad 4th gen, no issues.
Did the drone land in the right place using IOS?
I am also interested in others’ P4Pv2 RTH results. Please post anything you observe.
My first try with PIX4D Capture and RTH ended up with drone appearing to attempt an auto RTH but then descending about 15’ laterally off the launch point. This was in a cluster of buildings so had to quickly take over manual flight and land. Based on this, at this point I do not rely on RTH / landing. I just plan from the start on taking manual control of drone at end of PIX4D mapping mission.
I have a theory here. DJI Go 4 makes use of an optional “precision T/O” where the drone flies vertically to 20’ and supposedly captures reference images of the T/O spot using sensors (not main camera). Later, when it executes a RTH, it first flies to the GPS coordinates (which may have an error of many feet) and then it descends. As it gets closer to the ground you can see the drone make lateral adjustments to find the visually recorded T/O point. This final landing usually is good to about 1’ in landing accuracy. It seems to always hit the 2.5" “launch pad” I set out.
If you fly the entire mission with PIX4D Capture, I suspect that it does not make use of this PrPv2 feature to capture the visual T/O view, and hence the RTH accuracy is limited to GPS only. Others have said the drone appeared to simply land at the mission end point rather than RTH but I have not heard that confirmed with the final release software.
Again, my MOST DESIRED enhancement request is to have an option where PIX4D Capture would honor (i.e. not override and set) all camera settings and also RTH / home point settings. This would allow me to take off with DJI Go 4 using “precision T/O”, set the camera settings as desired (including any WB, exposure settings, fixed focus, JPEG+RAW), confirm obstacle clearance altitudes (i.e. tree heights), and then start the PIX4D mapping mission in mid flight (after setting confirmed safe obstacle clearance altitude). My guess is that in this case the DJI Go 4 established home location and RTH settings (including T/O images) would allow the drone to execute a precision RTH just as it would with a pure DJI Go 4 flight. Note that all the drone needs to execute the precision RTH is stored in the drone at the start as it can accomplish this in case of loss of signal.
I might have some additional test results to report tomorrow.
Hi Mark Muntean, I flew eight missions using Pix4DCapture (Android) with P4Pv2 this past week, allowing all missions to RTH automatically. All but 2 landed precisely at home. Those other two were about a foot off so I made adjustments while the drone was still a few feet off the ground. The entire flight vicinity allowed for a complete view of the sky but the level landing area was quite small. So far, I am very happy with the app, once I can get it to connect to the P4Pv2. It seems to take quite a few tries to connect to the drone for the first mission of the day, but once it does connect, I make sure to leave the remote on between battery replacements on the drone and have no further issues. That initial connection process of first going in to djiGO4, closing it, forcing it to stop, and then going in to Pix4DCapture seems like a hit and miss. I seem to go through this process at least a few and sometimes many times before the drone will connect in Pix4DCapture, and in the mean time turning off the drone and remote and restarting the Android, and then starting them up again - the order of which does not seem to matter. Does anyone have a smooth process using Android where the P4Pv2 connects flawlessly to Pix4DCapture every time from the get go?
@Susan Myers
I have the same issue, connection can take a few tries. It happens on both P4D and Drone Deploy though. I mainly use an S8 phone.
I am careful to make sure the default app for usb hookup is not assigned, so I must answer the nag question of what app to use every time I plug in the controller. No issues once hooked though.
@ Susan Myers - thanks for the great report. This is the most complete multi-flight report I have seen since the app updates. Good to hear RTH and auto land worked well repeatedly. I will have to conduct more trials.
I did not experience with the problem you describe when switching from DJI Go 4 to PIX4D in flight but I am on iOS and that may make a difference. Also, I do make sure to completely exit the DJI Go 4 app before launching PIX4D Capture to make sure the two applications are not fighting over some common resource, and I also pull and reconnect the lighting port cable to reset the connection of the iPad to the controller. This whole sequence probably does not matter however since until / unless PIX4D allows retention of camera settings however there is not much need for this sequence anyway other than if needed for IMU/Compass/Gimbal calibration, which can be accomplished on the ground with DJI Go 4 prior to take off.
I do like a first manual flight to survey obstacles (trees, buildings, cranes) carefully, but now that I think of this I can likely do this by hand flying anyway while in PIX4D Capture, and this would allow me to see the exact obstacle positions on the PIX4D flight plan map and to carefully verify that the flight path is indeed clear of all obstacles! This seems like a great idea.
I (like you) also have had no problems with changing drone batteries while leaving the controller / iPad / app on. The drone reconnects quickly after rebooting.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Let me clarify my idea (verifying obstacles) from my last post. Here is what I will try.
Plan and Take Off with PIX4D Capture as usual.
After Take off but before the “start” point on the route, hit pause.
Manually fly the drone by joysticks to verify clearance of obstacles, and coverage of the mapping region. Hopefully I will be able to see the drone position on the PIX4D flight route map. If adjustments are needed to the PIX4D flight perimeter or altitude unfortunately I think I would need to exit PIX4D here. If no adjustments are needed try and simply resume the flight. I do not know whether this would work.
I am in CA and some of flights are in hilly areas with tall Redwoods so careful obstical planning is needed.
What about manual takeoff, then having P4D run?
I always prefer to take off manually, and the other flight control apps let you do that.
Is there a way with P4D?
I know how to land manually of course, just takeoff is the issue.
Hi all
Even if most of the people following and interacting in this thread already knows it, the P4P V2.0 is now officially supported by Pix4Dcapture on both Android and iOS platform.
- From 23/08/2018, on Android, version V4.3.1 has been released together with Phantom 4 Pro V2 support.
- From 27/08/2018, on iOS, version V4.3.0 has been released together with Phantom 4 Pro V2 support.
@all, thank you very much for sharing your experiences and tips while flying with our application, it is very useful!
Also, it is nice to keep a thread with a specific subject and not spread out too much especially with a thread that has a lot of comments so that users can easily search for information on the community. Don’t hesitate to open new threads if you feel the discussion is not related anymore to the original post.
Best,
Final update… flights today with P4Pv2. Flew three flights, a nadir row, an xy grid, and a POI. Here are observations.
First, flew pre-flight with DJI Go 4 to verify its RTH accuracy. Drone landed about 1’ from T/O position.
Flew nadir flight. Set up as usual with PIX4D Capture. I did however then take off manually (joysticks only - no DJI Go 4 App). I was able to fly around the site while monitoring position on Capture. This allowed me to verify my permiter and tree clearances. I then while inflight started the Capture mission. It took over, moved to the start point, flew the rows, and then flew RTH. It landed in the same position as the DJI test - about 1’ off T/O. Conclusions - this workflow is good, allows confirmation of perimeter and obstical clearances, yet still allows full Capture function. RTH worked well.
Flew grid flight. This time full PIX4D T/O though RTH. Again same landing spot. All good.
Flew a circle or POI. Flight seemed to work fine, but I noted that the drone STOPS hard for each shot (not needed). This makes the flight time longer than need be. Also, at end of flight the bird started to land at the last point, not at the home point. Repeated - same failure.
It seems as if there is a BUG here in circle mode. Two issues - not able to set continuous flight shooting (not an available option on the advanced settings for this mode). Also RTH - MASSIVE FAIL!
I am pretty much resigned to simply plane to manually RTH so as not to have any surprises.
1 Like
I did two flights yesterday, polygonal missions. It was actually one mission, and I knew it would take 2 or 3 batteries. I had the same connection issues as the past, took 3 tries to get P4D ctrl+dji app to connect to the drone. There seems to be a pattern though, I recall it always works after I unplug the usb cable to S8 phone, then replug and start the ctrl app.
Anyway, during the flight, when the first battery got to 25%, it beeped and told me battery was low, then just said Landing on the screen. I was waiting for it to return to home, it did not. I hit the abort button and that stopped the flight, and I figured it would return to home, but it seemed to do nothing. After about 10 seconds at same altitude and location, I switched mode on the transmitter to take over. I then closed P4D and opened dji go and flew back. I put in a new battery and was hoping I could continue the previous interrupted mission, but you can’t.
So I’m totally confused on what is supposed to happen when you hit low battery in a flight, and the mission is not done. This will be common for me as I fly large areas to check grading elevations. I may have got impatient and not noticed it was actually behaving, but I can’t wait too long when low on battery, and when the drone is far away.
thx
I forgot to mention, to finish the area I had to add a mission and fly it. Luckily I had pulled in a kmz outline of the area so could just fly the remaining portion.
1 Like
Hi James,
I would suggest you to read this article on our Knowledge Base about multi-Battery missions.
You will see that on the Android version of Pix4Dcapture, multi-battery missions is available only for Grid missions.
Also about the behavior of the drone when it reached a low battery, it will follow the settings that have been defined in DJI GO 4. Pix4Dcapture will not override these settings so I would advise you to have a closer look at the drone documentation for this. From my understanding, you probably canceled the home return, hence the behavior you described.
On the Pix4Dcapture side, the app will show a battery warning when the drone battery goes below 30%, but it will not trigger any RTH.
Best,
Tried using Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 with Pix4D Capture, the drone takes off 5 ft from the ground and on the screen, it shows taking off but the drone stays and hovers at that 5 ft height and doesn’t head to fly the grids. Can you explain the reason for this?
You need to give more info. Did you have any other drone related progs running? Did you try different types of flight plans?
Does dji go behave, get gps and all? You have to say more as I don’t think anyone has seen that happen, and posted here.
@ James Maeding,
I just had DJI go 4 open with it in the background, the drone files well the GPS connection is good on DJI GO 4. it checks all the boxes when loading the survey in the pix4d capture and when I press the start button it just takes off 5 ft and then hovers at same spot and on the app u can see it shows as taking off.
@ James Maeding
I tried 2d and 3d grid flyovers.
yah, the first thing with every third party flight contol app is you only have one running at a time.
Close dji go before opening pix4d and you have a chance. If both are running everyone will blame it on that.
@ James Maeding
Thank a lot will try and let u know.
@ gregory
Please forgive it this is obvious, but here is my checklist when things go strange with PIX4D or the drone:
> verify current versions of iOS, PIX4D, DJI Go 4, drone and controller firmware
> reboot and connect tablet, controller, drone (in that order)
> Use DJI Go 4 and confirm communications, GPS status
> perform IMU calibration (always do this when in doubt or after drone transport)
> perform compass calibration (away from metal / rebar in concrete)
> reset home position, fly simple manual flight with DJI Go 4 (good opportunity to confirm obstacle heights), test RTH
> reboot all again in order and DO NOT launch DJI Go 4 (I have had issues with Go / PIX4D interacting)
> now launch PIX4D and try simple mission
Another check you can do is to take the drone off manually and fly it somewhere up in the middle of the mission and try to start the PIX4D mission from there. Also - be ready for surprises at the end of mission with PIX4D and RTH - I generally make it a habit to take over and hand fly home after the last waypoint - no surprises.
You are probably saying “yes, the TV is plugged in” at this point if you already tried all of these. I have found however that having a precise repeatable and perhaps obsessive workflow does reduce surprizes as I have probably made most every mistake and found every incompatibility at some point in time.
Keep us updated as to what you find - may lead to another step in a good process.