Pix4Dcapture - Large site/Multiple flight Missions?

sorry Julie did not see you last update … 

@Rik - I just updated the ETA above ;).

So I am planning a 1000 hectare survey in the next few months.  What would be the best way to carry this out.  Multiple flights with overlap and then merge?  I will be doing higher altitude (120 or more metres) to obtain more coverage at cost of resolution.  I have just tested a battery at 120 metres and covered around 45 hectares of ground meaning I will need to fly around 25 flights…more will be necessary if I need to have much overlap.

Hi Julie,

I see your latest post on multi-batteries for IOS will be available around December.  I too have a large project pending, but fear the lack of offline flight planning to get altitude data and planned mapping areas seriously will hinder my ability to execute this project.  Other flight packages already offer flight planning on the Mac and are integrated with IOS.  Is offline flight planning coming soon for the Mac and IOS???

 

 

 

 

 

larr2000

@Blue
The current iOS workaround is to fly several smaller missions, to adjust them according some reference points on the basemap, and to process all the images together in Pix4D Desktop. No need create a sub-project per flight. Just import all images together in a single project. Just make sure to have a sufficient overlap (learn more).

@Larry
Did you see this article about planning and flying a mission without Internet in the field?

@Julie, What is the status of the resume mission function when a battery dies on the iOS app? Yesterday I flew 85ac with my P4P and noticed flight time estimates were off due to wind and idle time waiting for missions to upload to the craft. This resulted in multiple missions not being completed due to a low battery. I was able to reduce the flight area enough that I got all my flights in but it was a risky situation trying to balance a max flight area and a RTH situation. This “Pause” and “Resume” function would be extremely convenient when flying a large area.

A point to note is that often I had to completely exit the app, create a new flight area and start over hoping I had enough overlap with the previous mission. If the app was not restarted it often malfunctioned and wouldn’t sync with the craft resulting in the craft taking off to start the mission but the app not recognizing the flight path. This has caused a number of issues processing some of the 2500+ photos that were captured as many are redundant, meaning it was taking pictures but the app was not reflecting that. That being said I eagerly await the pause/resume function. 

Hi Dustin,

We target mid-December for the iOS release with the multi-battery flight.

In the meantime, the only option option is to align smaller flights to ensure a sufficient overlap using the features in the basemap. I understand this is not ideal though.

For optimal experience with Pix4Dcapture, we recommend to proceed with basic checks. Also sometimes it is needed to restart from scratch (turn off/on the drone, controller, and quit Pix4Dcapture) to re-initialize the drone and the communication with the app.

Hi Julie,

 

What is the status of multi-battery flights?

 

Thanks,

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

There were some changes in our roadmap for the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. The app developers have been and are still working on it though. I will hopefully come with more information soon.

i’d love multi-battery flights too.

Each flight with different altitute, and some overlap between flights, so we can merge projects.

Also saving projects.

 

thanks!!

Wow, I don’t envy Julie her job - promising that the resume feature would be available in mid-December, and now “more information soon”.

I head off to fly a huge project at a remote site in a week, and I fear that I will be flying on a ‘hope it works’ basis…

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David,
You’ll be planning missions based on battery Life for sure. I’ve been watching this from the beginning too and have little faith that this functionality will be available on iOS any time soon. C’mon Julie prove me wrong, please!

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So, does the above mean that - since 2015 - Pix4D has not done anything to address the multiple batteries per flight issue.  For the types of job I am planning to do (large farms in Australia) this restriction makes Pix4D almost useless. 

It would mean that - if I really wanted to use Pix4D - I’d need to buy an aircraft with 2 hours or more duration on a single battery.  

Sorry Pix4D, but this is not good enough for me.  What sizes of fields or areas are your happy(?) customers flying using Pix4D/Pix4D Ag?  

Hopefully, the new update will have vast improvements, considering multi-battery flights have been ongoing since 2015 and were supposed to be available end-summer (2017) and then pushed back to mid-December (2017)!  This has been an issue for over two years and needs to be implemented now!

Vast improvements to the App should include;

  • Multi-battery mission

  • Terrain following (using SRTM) or being able to adjust the altitude of individual      waypoint(s)

  • Import KML/KMZ

  • Coordinates of polygon or area to be flown with UAV

  • Image count/ticker during flight to confirm images have been taken

  • Display speed (meters, km, mph, or feet) of UAV when mission planning rather than “Slow” “Slow+” “normal” “normal” “fast”.  Yes, I know you can see the speed of the UAV once it is up in the air flying the mission, but some of us are flying photogrammetric and LiDAR at the same time.  Speeds can be crucial to mission planning!!

 

Like I’ve said in the past, I am willing to pay for the app and I am sure others would be willing to pay as well!  Start charging for the app, hire more people and improve your product!

 We are considering switching processing software all together!

 

Let’s make this happen Pix4D team!!

 

Regards, 

Thomas

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I stumbled on a note from Blaz (June 2017) which says multi-battery works on Android.  I’ll give it a go as I happen to have an Android (phone size) device handy.  

I very much prefer to use my iPad 4 Mini for flight planning and management however.  So, please bring on this feature in the iOS version soon.  

From the app updates, it appears that there must be a large percentage of Parrot users that need all the attention from the developers. 

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From our experience, fixed-wing missions cannot touch multi-rotor quality (camera with gimbal).  The wind effects fixed-wing too much when trying to get quality data!  Pix4D please focus on P4P, anyone mapping with less than the P4P should NOT be in the mapping industry and should be considered minor league in my opinion! For the record, we map photogrammetric with the P4P & LiDAR with the M600P!

 

Pix4D please get the resume function and KML/KMZ import working on IOS!!

 

Hi

How is the large area, sequential flight issue solution coming along for iOS?

Thanks…

 

HI ADS ALC,

It is possible to operate multi-battery flights on both Android and iOS version of Pix4Dcapture. I would suggest you have a look at this article on our knowledge base to learn more about it.

Also, for big areas, you might have to enable some advanced settings/mode. To do so, have a look at the following article.

Best,

Hello everyone

I just wanted to ask the community some recommendations or useful tips on how to plan, configure and execute multiple missions/flight in order to create a mossaic. I’m going to use a DJI Mavic Pro to fly an area of about 270 ha and have some doubts on how to maintain a good overlap between flights.

Any recommendations or tips will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks