[iOS] Pix4Dcapture with DJI drones

Hi Matthew: 

I am using a P3A with the latest firmware and I am experiencing similar results although your first flight was more successful than mine. 

First flight - props spin up as if ready to fly. Nothing happened. 

Second,Third and Fourth flights (after rebooting iOS, the p3A and controller each time). P3A flys to altitude defined in Pix4D Capture . and after a long wait for ti to fly the waypoints, I had to land it manually

Seems like we are having the same issue. I went ahead and downloaded Map Pilot app like one of the previous posters had talked about and it works flawlessly. I just took the photos off the sd card and processed them in pix4d and it came out great. I am still looking forward to Pix4d Capture getting its issues worked out though and adding the necessary features it needs. 

Hi Matthew

Does Map Pilot work with the Inspire Pro / X5 now, do you know that?

Reto

I am not sure as i am just flying the phantom 3 professional but the site says compatible with inspire pro.  

All I can suggest is we had the same issue with the Phantom 3 - once updating the firmware on both the UAV and controller this was resolved.

It seems the app doesn’t allow DJI to fly circular mission?

Is there any other way to achieve that?

 

Will it support phantom 3 4k? https://www.dji.com/newsroom/news/dji-announces-the-phantom-3-4k

I have made several missions using my Phantom 4.  A lot of the time, the mission doesnt seem to load completely.  The aircraft will take off and fly to the designated altitude and just hover. One one occasion, it took off and  hovered at about 2 meters and did not move.  A complete reboot of the aircraft and app seems to fix the problem most times…HELP PLEASE

Is it possible to make the survey area bigger than 200 x 200 with the Inspire? or is this going to be avaliable in upcoming releases? 

@Mark Clair: “One one occasion, it took off and  hovered at about 2 meters and did not move.”

Hi Marc

I had the same problem, more than once with my Inspire Pro. I think it had/has to do with the flight mode (FAP switch). If you switch to F-mode to early (e.g. in order to upload the mission), then back to P and again to F when you want to transfer to automated flight, the takeover fails. Could that be the problem in your case too?

 

 

@James: The 200 x 200 m limitation is the main reason I currently suspended my tests with Capture.I can hardly imagine that this is a technical limitation.

@james: I had the same problem - I updated the software on both the drone and remote through the DJI site.

 

Fixed it 

Managed to get a bigger grid. Got 300 x 200 done in about 10 minutes flying. Trying to sync to my ipad now. It’s been going about 15 minutes so far. Is there supposed to be a status bar along the bottom that shows how far it has to go? All I get is a warning when I try to go to the home screen saying it is still syncing?

@Pix4D: What are the limitations in respect to the covered area? What’s the reasoning behind these limitations? Please clarify.

Hi,

just wondering if there is a way to sync just the .p4d file after a mission and then use the images of the sd card in the drone without having to sync all the photos after each mission as my batteries go flat before the syncing is complete?

 

Thanks

I am having huge issues lately to sync the data after the mission is completed. Two out of three flights are failing to sync for no apparent reason. I know you can import the geotagged photos straight into Pix4D, but my understanding is this is not as accurate as importing the p4d file. Has anyone else had issues?

Also finding the app crashes when the drone has completed the mission and heading back to the home point. Are people finding this too?

@Paul Grayson  I regularly import geotagged photos straight into Pix4D. (I primarily use Map Pilot to get my photos.) The only cost is processing time as it takes a little longer to solve the georeferencing process and calculate the accurate location at the time of the photo.  The geotag from my phantom is not as accurate as using the Capture app.  I have not seen any difference in accuracy of the finish product.  I have compared with and without GCP and see no differences.  The quality report gives you information about how much correction is made in the georeferencing process so you can see the differeces but the end product is the same.

I still like Map Pilot better than Capture.  The flight area does not have to be rectangular, it allows multiple battery flights and I have no problems connecting with the phantom or crashes with the software.

RM

Hi all,

Thank you for sharing your experience and your nice comments.
Your feedback really helps in improving the app. Rest assured that we keep a close eye to this post even if we do not always reply.

Stop-and-shoot behavior / Safe Mode (@ all)

To solve the problem of time consuming, we have implemented a Fast Mode to fly the grid mission available in our latest version 1.2.2. Note however, the Safe Mode is activated by default. To change it, go to Home screen > Grid Mission > Settings.

Mission not uploaded to drone / Drone just hovers (@ Kirk, Mark, Matthew)

Sometimes it takes a bit long to send the mission details to the drone through DJI SDK (what allows the communication between the two). It could also be that the takeoff check list is not refreshed so the error remains and prevents you to start but the mission is indeed uploaded.
We would suggest to try the following:

  • Press Cancel in the takeoff checklist, and then Next again, it will refresh the status.
  • Cancel the mission, and slightly adjust the grid, e.g. the size, in order to force the app to upload the mission details again.
  • Restart the mission, meaning close the app, disconnect the mobile device, switch off the remote controller and the drone.
  • Uninstall Pix4Dcapture and reinstall the app.

Size limitation (@ William, Reto, James)

Regarding the maximum area that can be covered in one single mission, the limiting factors are:

  • Altitude or overlap (the higher the less overlap required, meaning fewer lines in the grid, and vice versa).
  • Size of the grid (length of the flight track).

Actually the color of the grid refers to the estimated flight time that is calculated given the factors above assuming the battery is fully charged at the beginning of the mission. Note that it does not take into account the battery that is necessary to fly to the first way point of the grid and to come back.
In the iOS app, even if the colors is yellow / orange / red it is still possible to fly the mission. If you are using the Fast Mode, you should be allowed to take more images since the drone does not have to stop in order to trigger the shutter.

Processing from the .p4d file vs. create a project from scratch (@ Paul, William)

This results in the same model with Pix4Dmapper when processing on a computer. For the iOS app, the geotaggs saved in the EXIF of the images by DJI are the same as that written in the .p4d file. On iOS, the only difference is that the .p4d file contains a default processing area, meaning project boundaries that will be taken into account for running step 1. For more information: https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/202558439

Pause mission / Polygonal grid (@ Roby, William)

So far it is not possible to pause a mission and change the battery. With the Android app (it will come later on iOS), we have implemented a new way to manage the missions being part of the same project on the same map: https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/208820126
This way it is possible to fly several missions in a row and to eventually change the battery in between.
The new interface also allows to create and adjust grid missions in order to cover polygonal areas.

@ Michael

To change the arrival point of the grid, you could change the orientation of the grid and try to play with the grid’s size so that one line is added or removed (the end point will go to the left or right corner).
The basic telemetry information is already displayed in the app if you click the battery icon in the Map view of grid mission.

@ Jarrod

May we ask why you need the .csv file?

@ Gv123

The 7-line limitation has been fixed in the latest version 1.2.2.

@ Matthew

Are you still facing the issues you described with our latest version 1.2.2?
It seems like Jarrod and James could solve it by upgrading the drone’s firmware. Did you have the chance to give it a try?
Regarding the camera angle, did you make sure it was set to be vertical in the settings of Pix4Dcapture and DJI GO?
If the drone hovers and does not go to the first waypoint of the grid, it might be because the mission was not successfully uploaded to the drone (see the comments in my first reply above).

@ Power Bee

The circular mission is still at the experimental stage for Bebop 2 since circular missions require more attention because of eventual obstacles in the flight track. Bebop 2 is lighter. We are obviously thinking about implementing something similar for DJI drones but it will take some time.

In the meantime, you can still use the Free Flight Mission of Pix4Dcapture and manually fly the drone around a point of interest (POI).
Images are captured given a space interval (vertical / horizontal distance), meaning the user does not need to trigger the camera shutter but has to manually control the drone. For more information: https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/204261889

@ Piotr

We have not tested the compatibility of Pix4Dcapture with Phantom 3 4K yet. Nevertheless, the Phantom 3 Standard, that is compatible with the iOS version of Pix4Dcapture, has similar connectivity relying on Wi-Fi. This is not available on Android yet, but should be available as soon as SDK3 is used in the Android version, the development team is working on it.

To connect the drone, please select the Phantom 3 Standard in your settings in the iOS version of Pix4Dcapture. Then you need to connect your phone/tablet and the remote control by WiFi. The communication is made through the radio link of the remote controller.

@ James

No, it is not possible to generate the .p4d file without transferring the images from the drone’s SD card to the phone. Both are part of the sync process so far but we have forwarded this suggestion to our developers.
A status bar should be displayed when the mission is synchronized. The synchronization might have failed but the app was probably not responding anymore. Did it happen recently with the latest version and the latest drone’s firmware? If so, would you mind to share with us the app log file?
https://www.dropbox.com/request/OshqYnEG9qLEZHWvLldS

@ Paul

If you are using the latest version 1.2.2 and drone’s firmware, we would be very interested to investigate the case where the sync fails and the app crashes when the drone goes back to the home point. Could you please send the log files?
https://www.dropbox.com/request/LYOwkJ2jJmW9y1VVIPIA

iOS app log files (@ James, Paul)

Look in the LogFile folder next to the Missions folders when you connect your device to your computer using iTunes. Use the Save As… option for the LogFile folder and send us all files it contains called com.pix4d.pix4dmapper.capture date.log.
For more information: https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/203991949

Regards,

@William Miller

I agree, the Map Pilot App has potential, however I have experienced some major failures with it in the past week. I have been in contact with the developers and they admit there are some bugs they are trying to resolve. The major advantage they have over Pix4D Capture App is the ability to change batteries during the mission. However, this didn’t always work because you have to reload the flight plan every time you change batteries and then it often got lost and didn’t know where the re-start point was. It’s work in progress I’m sure.