Is safe mode where it stops to take each photo? If that is the case, that isn’t going to work for my project. I’m trying to cover 140 acres at 300’ altitude and it takes me about 2 full batteries on my Phantom 3 Pro with the drone going about 13 m/s.
If it is working in safe mode when it is going slower, perhaps there is some kind of processing issue within the app/camera connection that isn’t quick enough in fast mode.
Hi Matt Y
Yeah it’s going to stop for each photo.
And yes it will work for your project, you just have to fly multiple flights and make sure you have good overlap or good ground control.
i don’t even go out into the field with less than 9 batteries, if you are trying to cover 140 acres with 2 batteries you should re-evaluate your field practice.
Matt I am not tying to be a d!@k, but I saw a so called professional Drone Pilot in action, the guy couldn’t even keep his phone battery charged and he came 4 batteries shy of being able to complete the mission.
There is no processing issue, I have spent so much time on this problem and I have told you the ultimate no fail solution, if you come back to me and tell me you don’t have enough batteries, I’ll tell you to buy some new batteries, and on top if that buy the Hi Cap batteries for more flight time.
I can tell you from a photographer and a Land Surveyors perspective, the steadier the instrument the better the data, you would be surprised how much better your data collection would be on safe mode. and with multiple 70% overlapping flights with a whole site 20% overlap “stitching” flight you will get unbelievable results.
some of the things I speak of are my own concepts, PiX 4 D DO YOU NEED A CONSULTANT? I do crazy accurate work with your APP and office software it’s like LIDAR only better!
GOOD LUCK!
Being on limited funds through a grant, purchasing more batteries for a drone that isn’t an option for me. I have 5 batteries, although one seemed to have died after a DJI update last year sometime. I am flying multiple altitudes over the same area on the same day. It would likely take me many hours in one day to complete my flights. I am already doing 80% overlap which was a improvement over 70%. The quality I am getting is blowing away the satellite imagery and aerial images that are available to me.
The fact is that the app still isn’t working. If they didn’t want to let the drone take photos while it was moving, it shouldn’t have that option. I have great data from the drone the way I was flying it with the DJI camera and a Parrot Sequoia camera in fast mode before running into this issue. The Sequoia of course isn’t triggered by Pix4D, but I am having other unrelated issues with that. I have been getting very good RGB and DSM data from the fast mode in the drone. If I had a fixed-wing drone, then stopping wouldn’t even be possible. I understand it would be better with the drone stopping, but that’s not going to work for me. For the Sequoia, stopping is almost necessary for the rolling shutter on the RGB camera, but that is a trade-off I have to make.
My phone battery is never near dying because it is getting charged from my DJI controller.
Matthew,
dont get me wrong, I understand the operational limitations but what I am saying that is most important is are you in safe mode?
if you are not in safe mode then try it in safe mode, and if that means you can’t do the project or you blow your budget, you have to eat it and move ahead. I know that overhead and equipment costs can limit efforts but the bottom line is all my problems with the APP are negligent when I am in safe mode.
i flew a project the other day and the APP crashed, by the time I reestablishe the APP the mission was half over, all photos stored drone returned to home no problem, on fast mode this would never happen it would come back empty handed.
so don’t look at what the APP should do or what it claims to do, look at what it can do, try the safe mode option and just see what happens
Then you might have to spend more time than expected on this project but you can adjust for the next project. Sometimes we have to pay a little to learn
the only other thing I should add is I have never done a bunch of camera swaps like you have done so there is a bit of an unknown factor there that I cannot speak to.
AGAIN GOOD LUCK TO YOU MATTHEW
I had this happen to me again Thursday. I had the camera error pop up on the checklist in Pix4D Capture. I restarted the app and drone and remote. The error showed up again so I restarted the app again and then the error went away. I flew the mission and no pictures were captured.
I had to fly another mission right afterwards so I shut everything down to change batteries. I started everything back up again and the camera error showed back up! I restarted the drone, the remote, and the app multiple times until the error went away. I made sure to restart all three things whenever the error showed up (which ended up being 4-5 times before I was able to start the mission). This second mission did take pictures.
I wonder why the Inspire 2 and X4S is causing problems for the app. Or is it iOS 11 / the app?
Specs again:
Inspire 2 (latest firmware)
X4S (latest firmware)
iOS 11, iPhone 7+
Pix4D Capture (latest version)
Same issue as described. We only got photos on the third of 5 missions today. The app appears to be taking photos and the drone deploys and returns normally but when we check the SD card, the photos were not captured on all but one of the missions. We are using DJI P4P and Ipad with the latest software versions. This success rate is not affordable. We will have to look for another mobile app.
Scott here again,
Harold are you in “safe mode” in advanced settings?
(please read my previous posts)
I have had the same problems you are all having, but no one can tell me if they are flying in “safe mode”
I have a 99% mission success rate using “safe mode” if I fly in “fast mode” the APP is unuseable
ITS ALL ABOUT SAFE MODE
Good Luck
Scott,
Safe mode is not a solution to the problem, it is only a work around. Like most people in this forum, we used the software previously and it worked correctly, since the update the software does not work.properly and Pix4d needs to fix it. I have +$6,000 invested in the desktop application and I need a fix not a workaround. The only “solution” I currently have is using DJI ground station, but that is very limited at the moment.
Jason,
i hear what you are saying, I’m just saying it works good in “safe mode”
i have tried multiple flight APPs, Drone Deploy, Maps Made Easy and others.
all of the photos will work in PiX4d office software
i use it because I feel the office software is the best
point is, safe mode with PiX4d (until they get their stuff together or any other flight mapping APP can be used with the office software
i like to use the same company for data capture and processing too
but pictures taken with most other APPs will process just fine using PiX office software
Following up on my previous posts…
I tested the safe mode in the Capture app a few days ago and yes it took and saved the photos, however it appeared to still lose connection with the drone during flight. About a third of the way through the first flight, the app stopped tracking where photos were being taken. The second flight did not appear to lose connection however as it tracked every photo being taken during flight. That seems to match some folks issues with getting photos in some flights and not others. The safe mode is coded to have the drone continue taking photos even if the app is turned off, so it will trigger the camera regardless. Whereas fast mode will not do that per the explanation on the selection screen in the app. So the connection issue is happening in both modes in my case. I have just about completely ruled out a hardware issue since I can still take photos with the controller.
It takes me about 4-5 times longer to cover an area in safe mode versus fast mode at 300 feet altitude. And the image and DSM quality in my case were not significantly better after processed in the desktop application. The only viable workaround for me at this point is to use the camera trigger button on the DJI remote while flying a fast mode mission in the app. That is able to capture and save the images I need, but it just takes clicking the button a couple of hundred times per flight.
Hello folks. Just to give everyone a good solution. Just roll back the software upgrade instead of waiting for another update with fix if you really need to have your drone in the sky.
I have learnt from my past experience(with DJI Go app), never to update if it is working correctly and wait if the new update has no problem.
Anyway, please let me know if you want the previous version so I can share it.
I am absolutely livid. truly and absolutely livid. I flew 10 batteries on a huge job expecting areas to be covered. Mission has not failed, not once, all photo icons are there for missions… 4 missions (4 batteries) zero photos despite successful everything.
I have a 30+ million dollar project I was flying so imagine my embarrassment I have to endure when I am telling project management that 25% of my 750 acre project did not get captured. I drove there for 1.5 hours. Drove back 1.5 hours. Spent insane amount of time getting images processed… only to find out that a quarter of my bloody project did not stick.
How am I supposed to have faith in the app if it does not take pictures when it says it does?
Empty sd cards. Formatted and everything. Everything latest firmware and app version. What am I supposed to do now? Umm excuse me 300 earthmoving people working on the project… the app did not stick so sorry?!
I miss the good old days when app just worked.
@roy Would you kindly give the link to previous version? Thanks.
@yaroslav
Hey mate!
You spent insane amount of time getting image processed without checking if the data are complete?
One of my checklist on the field is checking if the data is complete before going back to the office. I think it is improper to blame it to Pix4D if you did not check the data.
@Antonio Anelli
For a while Sir. I am checking if I have the raw installer on my tablet first,
@Roy Castanares.
I beg to differ. I have been using pix4d for several years and these sort of issues were not present. Granted back then we had other issues but THIS issue was not of general concern.
I am a professional geographer so I am processing mountains of data and imagery on the daily. We quality control but we can’t check every single image or every single flight.
Let me paint you a picture. Imagine minding your business in the office doing stuff and then boss comes to you and sais he just received a call and you need to drop what you are doing, drive 1.5 hours and tackle this massive ongoing construction job with half a day turnaround. You check your equipment, load up into 4x4 and venture into the mines surrounded by massive excavators, draglines, pipes, pumps, a million contractors who buzz around doing whatever they do. In that chaos you are supposed to fly a massive 750 acre project. You swap sd cards between every 2 flights, laptop is back in the office and tablet and phone both show successful flights. You put sd cards at random into tablet just to see if pictures are there. You do not have luxury of time to sit there and flip. You act within short constraints. In the office you have thousands of images to sift through from this and other jobs, not to mention regular work. And so you select images from this project and let software do its thing. And then you stare at it like a moron wondering where is the rest of the data.
I, as a consumer have done enough due diligence on my behalf to assume that technology will do what it is designed to do. It says it took pictures. I only have 10 batteries. No time and no do overs. You are in the middle of an active mine with equipment 100 times the size of your truck. Our draglines can fit a dump truck inside their buckets with room to spare.
Going forward I will be bringing my laptop and check every job but even then, if it goes into stupid mode, I do not have the luxury of time to charge batteries on the go as I am moving about the mine located hour and a half from the office.
“slow method” is out of question. I am fighting daylight, weather conditions and tight deadlines to fly it like that. I just put in the flight into app using slow method and it increased fly time by 2.5 hours. That is absolutely unacceptable.
I have been using pix4d since phantom 2 days.
As an additional, although I don’t use it normally is loading up of kmz you used on flight to the processing area just to check if there are areas where there are no pictures before starting initial processing. It would take just about a couple of minutes since there will be no processing done, just loading of all the data taken. And I assume it will be very easy to notice blank area since there are only 10 flight. With regards to pix4D capture, I think rolling back firmware update is our only option now.
The issue related to images that are not saved on the SD card happened to several users, but it is not systematic as you probably experienced it. For those who could have missed it, more information is provided in the second part of my comment above. Also make sure to always proceed with basic checks before flying. Besides the latest versions, it is really important that any other drone application does not run in the background.
I am sorry to hear that you faced the problem several times, and I obviously understand the frustration when realizing the images are missing. It affects DJI drones but is not related to the device used to fly.
As this is clear pain point, we are currently checking with the developers how to get a feedback from the drone to detect if images are effectively taken. Therefore, the users could stop the mission at the beginning if something is wrong with the camera and not wait the end of the flight to realize images are missing.
At least, we would display a warning pop-up if DJI does not send a callback after Pix4Dcapture triggered the camera. However, the callback might not be sent by DJI even though the images are captured. We are also thinking about checking whether the amount of free space is decreasing on the SD card or constant (capture fail).
Rest assured our team is trying the find the best compromise to improve the user experience.
Thank you Scott for your help in this thread. The Safe mode can be a workaround but it is not a sustainable solution in many cases as it was pointed out, e.g. to fly over large areas.
Rolling back to a previous version is not recommended as older versions are not tested with the current and most recent drone firmware. Previous versions of Pix4Dcapture were using older drone firmware and older SDK version (programming tools that allow the communication between the drone and an app). This is why the current issues did not happen in the past. Issues are always specific to the version combination of Pix4Dcapture - SDK - drone firmware.
Do you remember is the camera video feed was working properly when it happened? Was the screen blinking?
Thanks for the response Julie. I have uploaded my most recent log file from when I was having the camera issues.
Edit: I would also like to add that my video feed is working while using the app, even if no pictures are saved.
Julie- Thank you for working on this. In response to your question, yes, the video feed was working in the app during the mission.
I too have been bitten by this recently after tons of flawless Pix4D missions. It is definitely a deal breaker. Unfortunately so many DJI Firmware updates and Pix4D App updates happened around the same time there’s no way to pin it down to any singular event where it started happening.
One thing I have noticed with the video feed is that it does show during the mission and looks normal on the surface BUT on the missions that I end up with a blank card if I look in the video feed I’ve noticed the shutter is not firing. Usually it will black the screen out when the shutter fires but that is not happening on these missions where no images are captured. Not sure if anyone else has picked up on that or not.
Phantom 4, iPad Pro 10.5, all latest Firmware, iOS and Pix4d versions here.