PARROT ANAFI and Pix4DCapture troubles

I have several troubles with my ANAFI and Pix4DCapture (Android OS) with HUAWEI 20 Lite and HUAWEI 20. During several flights the app stopped to show that drone take pictures nevertheless that mission continue. After finishing of the flight I can see that furtunatlly all pictures are saved on SD-card of the drone. In result the app did not register all really taken images in the project and when upload the project to the cloud the processing not use all taken images! It is strange that when Pix4DCapture syncing images from the drone sometime the counter shows more images that are registered in the project and confusion is full!!! Please, see screenshot below - it shows more than my many words!

 

In my opinion there is some problem in the app with synchronization of the shooter of the drone camera, because all other data from telemetry were correct during the continuing flights and the connection was stable whole time. But finally the project is not complete (according Pix4DCapture) and results from processing in the cloud are not useful. Ofcourse, I downloaded manually images from the drone and uploaded manually in the cloud and receive results, but it is not expected behavior from stable app for flight planning and control!!!

Another serious problem of Pix4DCapture is that it shows the time of flight EXCEPT necessary time to take off from ground to the elevation of the flight AGL, to go from point of take off to start position on first line of flight plan and go back from END point to the landing position (Home) and land on the ground. The app have all necessary data to calculate correclty the whole time for performing a flight - position of the drone on the HOME, waypoints, height AGL, speed, etc. I am strongly recomend to improve the calculation of the time of flight to allow user to plane in more accurate and efficient way the flights!!! It will be useful to ensure safety flights and more effective use of the batteries.

I strongly suggest also to improve the provided telemetry data by Pix4DCapture with useful information of the flight and taken images. For example it will be usefull during the flight to see data for time from the take off (or remaining time to the finish of the flight), number of taken images and total number of estimated (planned to take) images, total number of lines from the flight plan and number of current line). All these data will be useful for operator to control more accurately the mission and make decisions during the flight.

Next trouble, which I discovered several times without any clear reason is shown on the following screenshot:

It is clear that is not possible to take images in one mission on two positions on the oposite coasts of the Black Sea!?! But regarding Pix4DCapture I succeeded! Fortunatelly this mistake does not affect on the results of the mission. But it is not seroius for professional app for plan and control of flights!!!

Hi Ivan,

Thank you for what you have reported. It is always useful to get users feedback. I will answer point by point.

About the first issue you have encountered, it may have happened that a synchronization issue occurred somehow. Do you often experience this behavior or it was only once? Is it reproducible? As we did not experience this behavior on our side while testing, I would suggest:

  • To send us the logs following this procedure so that we can investigate. It would be greatly helpful for usif you can provide the date and time when it happened.
  • Send us the logs the next time it occurs, providing us the date and time when it occurs.

About the flight time estimation, I agree that the calculations could be optimized someway. However, they are many parameters that can also impact the duration of the battery of your drone (temperature, altitude, wind conditions). So in normal use, we would always recommend the user to take a sufficient safety margin between the flight time estimated by Pix4Dcapture and the battery duration shown by the drone manufacturer. Do you experience significant differences between the estimated/real flight time?

About the telemetry, I will report your suggestions to the Product Owner and developer’s team as these parameters would be useful for the users if they can be displayed during the flight.

About the last part, no such behavior has been reported to us. I would then suggest you to send us the logs with date and time and project name so that we can have a look at them. Also, same questions than before, do you often experience this behavior or it was only once? Is it reproducible?

Best regards,

Hi, during my last flights by Parrot Anafi it is showing a warning message that the camera setup failed when try to start the flight (please, do not worry about status of mission and drone GPS etc. - the screenshot was taken inside of my office):

Time to time this message is changing to Camera is ready, but more times the warning is appearing.

I performed several times camera and gimble calibration in FreeFlight 6 app.

My question is what is the reason about this warning and what I have to do to not receive it?

I am having trouble creating a mission on pix4pd mapper, using Huawei p20 lite.
The satellite view turns black when I try to create a mission… Shown below

Has anyone had the same issue or can advise?

Many thanks

Hello,

The map is only loaded when you are connected to the internet. Please make sure that the app has access to the internet and give some time to load the tiles. If you are still not able to see the basemap, I would recommend changing the basemap provider which should solve your issue. For more information on changing the basemap provider, I would recommend you to go through our support article on Basemap provider / Change Basemap provider or add a custom one.

Regards,