I am unable to process images from a M3E RTK. after Step 1 it creates a big mess
According to other users I have asked Pix4D cannot use the M3E RTK properly and I should get other software.
Hi mnfletcher,
Full support for the Mavic 3 Enterprise came in version 4.8.3. I highly suggest installing this version for the best results with this drone.
im running 4.8.3
Could you attach your quality report and we can take a look at it.
Change the image cooridinate system to wgs84 and you should be fine.
BTW Mavic 3e with RTK is working perfectly on 4.7.5 (except geoid support)
Yes, I agree. You need to change your image coordinate system to wgs84. You might also want to use the Accurate Geolocation and Orientation calibration method as well.
I dont want to be in WGS84. Are you suggesting I shouldnt produce output in another coord system?
Hi Fletch,
The image coordinate system is different than your output coordinate system. Your drone should be tagging the images in WGS84. However, you should then select your desired output coordinate system in PIX4Dmapper. This will give you a better result.
The drone is acquiring images in WGS84. Then we transform to our coord system. the image coord system is thus correct and is the same as the output system. Pix4D does not do a good enough transformation between WGS84 and our country system. Also the time taken to do step 1 is ridiculous. The report I attached was half the project. The full project with about 4800 images took nearly 5 hours for step 1 on 1/4. I used geometric matching and that took over 6hrs. Crazy.
Needless to say I have processed it successfully with no fuss using another vendor and the time it took for the initial step was significantly less. Our Pix4D licenses are up for renewal in a few months and I dont think we will be doing that especially if we cant understand what is happening here.
Now I’m perfectly willing to accept there might be a setting I need to use or something like that but even just processing WGS84 to WGS84 with no attempt at a transformation results in the same mess.
If you have to use your local coordinate system in the pictures you will need to update the exif data in the pictures to correspond that coordinate system. Otherwise it will mess up the first step.
I Would use wgs84 as the image coordinate system and choose the output as desired (IRENET95 / Irish Transverse Mercator in your case). And if you did the flight with RTK remember to change the calibration method to ‘Accurate Geolocation and Orientation’. Lastly if you need to use orthometric heights change the ‘height above ellipsoid’ offset according to your local offset since the Pid4mapper doesn’t have proper geoid support.
I did update the exif data thats why the image and output coord systems are the same. We do accurate transformations and then update the images and change input coord system.
I will consider your comments regarding the calibration methods as these are the kinds of settings I suspect are the issue. Thank you.
Lastly if you need to use orthometric heights change the ‘height above ellipsoid’ offset according to your local offset since the Pid4mapper doesn’t have proper geoid support. How is this done??
In the ‘Select Output Coordinate System’ windows tick the Advanced Coordinate Options box and
type your local offset to Geoid Height Above… box
Thanks Jaakko, is that a standard difference calculation …17.701? I should convert all my heights by 17.701?
Thanks
Hi there
That was just a screenshot from my latest project, so do not use that as an offset in your projects. You need to always use the local offset. Local offset can be measured by GNNS receiver or you can check if you National land survey can provide you with that information.
And remember that if you are mapping large areas or roads for an example the offset can be different in different parts of you project. I would recommend that you use few GCP’s in you projects so you can verify the data.
There’s a few processing softwares that support geoids natively (Pix4Dmatic, Metashape, DJI Terra to name a few) if you want to make your life a little bit easier.